


i'm out of my head, of my heart, and my mind (cause you can run but you can't hide, i'm gonna make you mine)

by Booker (liberoryu)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Based very loosely off the Lockwood & Co. series, F/M, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Garrison AU, Humor, I'm so sorry Shiro, M/M, Misunderstandings, Other, Paranormal AU, Paranormal Investigators, Rivals to Friends to Lovers, S L O W B U R N, Suspense, The G-Trio study astrophysics by day and ectoplasm by night, The Galra boys are all cops, but it's a much wonkier version of the trope lol, but you're in trouble, denial is not a river in Egypt, klance, multiple POVs, very...loosely
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-05-27 06:50:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 52,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15019046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liberoryu/pseuds/Booker
Summary: "Sweet cheezus,Keith," Lance breathes, his eyes shining in amazement. "What you have there is agift."Keith frowns, "Well, I wish it came with a receipt so I can return it.""Or you could join us," Lance says quickly, nearly tripping over himself in excitement. "Do you know what this would mean for the team? We'd be a complete set!"AKA, the one where Shiro's day is so awfully plagued by ghosts and other things that go bump in the night, that it drives him completely off balance. The only way he could ever get back to the way things were is if this was dealt with psychically—because there's honestly nothing else that can be done.Cue Keith and his good intentions that lead him to a motley group of campus club paranormal investigators that have an ...interestingset of skills that might just be the thing he needs to help his friend.Of course, dealing with their pseudo leader, who incidentally can't seem to ever act normal around him, is something he should have anticipated, but maybe it's not all that bad, maybe there's something in it for him as well at the end of all of this.





	1. Ain't Got Nobody, Waitin' at Home (I Hope)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so I'm back with a new fic! 
> 
> If any of you lot have read Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood and Co. series, then some of the ghost busting methods that the gang's going to use in this fic are going to seem really familiar. (It should at least, it's his tone that I'm trying for as well -- something that's creepy and dark but still held buoyant with a bout of silly humour.) 
> 
> ALSO - This first chapter has a couple of major spoilers for Infinity War, I hope most of you have watched it already, I can't stop talking about it

**LANCE - 9:15 am, Galaxy Garrison: Aero401 A - Squad Lineups**

 

They're late.

 

Class started a good fifteen minutes ago and Pidge is raving mad. Her hands gesticulate angrily as she mouths off at Lance because, “ _of course,_ it’s the first day we get to use the Stardeck simulator and you decide that it’s going to take twenty minutes to get that crop of yours styled _just_ right.”

 

“You can’t rush perfection,” Lance says with a mollifying smile that wilts under the scathing look she throws at him. “Oh, all right, I’m sorry.”

 

“It looks the same anyway, at least if you’d puffed it up into a pompadour or something, then all of this would have at least made some sense.”

 

Hunk snorts softly at her side. “I say Lance would fit the shoujo prince look much better than eighties’ mafia.”

 

“I guess he puts in the same amount of product into his hair as any one of those boys, but _,_ he’s definitely no prince of mine.”

 

“ _Oi._ ”

 

They burst into class and wince when the resulting bang the doors make has everyone stop and stare at them. With their tails tucked firmly between their legs and heads bent low, the trio mutter apologies as they make their way to their seats.

 

Lance immediately notices two things. One, their apologies are for naught because class hasn’t started. Hell, Iverson isn’t even in the room, and two, the only table left for them is right at the back of the class and has already seated its first student-

 

 _Keith-McFreaking-Kogane_ . His minds supplies a steady commentary for him, but it's not like he _wants_ to think of Keith, he wants to block out his existence instead. _Nope, nuh-uh. Not today, demons. Not him. Dammit, he's always upstaging me and then has the_ nerve _to pretend like he has no idea what's going on. He doesn't even have the decency to put two words together when he's addressed--just grunts like the anti-social neanderthal he is, ugh. But his pretty eyes- stop. He’s ugly, ugly, ugly-_

 

“Hunk,” Lance whispers into his friend’s ear. “do me a favour and sit with-”

 

“Pidge!” Hunk either completely misses the urgency in his voice or he's flat out _ignoring_ him, knowing fully well what he wants, and pulls out a chair for her opposite Keith and next to his own empty seat. “I gotta show you these frame models I came up with for the new EMF machine I'm making for next week.”

 

Pidge, it seems, had caught on ages ago from the way Lance’s shoulders tensed up the moment he spotted Keith. “Yeah, sure,” she replies easily, playing along, and slides into the seat beside him. “I’m vetoing if it’s a holographic display, I know you want aesthetics, but we’re going to need stability for this week’s mission, and by that I mean _not_ a flickering light show, sorry bud.” She nods at Keith, “Mornin’ sunshine.” she chirps. He frowns at her ridiculous greeting but lazily salutes her in return, his attention focused elsewhere.

 

“Aw man,” Hunk says glumly, clapping Keith on the back in greeting before settling down.

 

If Keith noticed anything odd about the exchange, he didn’t comment on it. He just takes his bag off the chair beside him and without a second glance at Lance goes back to the book he was reading.

 

Lance seized the moment to spare a couple of seconds to take in Keith’s profile. Pale skin, small nose, a thin, delicate, but decidedly intense, furrow between his eyebrows that was in part because of the book he was in the middle of reading before the others had stormed in—" _Logometric Equations for Achieving Interstellar Speed and Distance."_ he drawls, rolling his eyes.

 

_How could you possibly find that riveting enough to waste the precious few moments you have left before class? Ya nerd._

 

Keith looks up with fierce scowl on his face. Welp. “Oops, did I say that out loud?” Lance asks unabashedly. “It’s true though,” he reaches out to pull the textbook away from Keith’s hands, but ignores the spark that crashes through him from where the tips of his fingertips graze the top of Keith’s knuckles. “All work and no play makes Keith a dull boy. _Well_ , let’s see what’s gotten you so broody,” He looks up from the cover to wink at Keith, and the boy’s scowl turns into something a little more feral.

 

“You know what, a pompadour would suit _you_.” he rambles on, because more often than not, he has no filter for the bullshit commentary running between his head and his mouth.

 

From somewhere in his periphery, he could have sworn he hears Pidge stifle a bubbling laugh.

 

Keith’s frown stills, and is replaced by something a little more baffled looking, and he continues to goggle at him until Lance starts to poke through his book.

 

He lets out a low growl and snatches it back, the tips of his ears turning red. “Piss off, Lance.” he hisses.

 

Lance sneers at him, “That’s a false cover, my dude,” he says, lips curling into a wicked grin. “I think I know what you have there.” The book’s big enough to hide another, smaller register sized book in it, however, it isn’t thick enough for the same, but Lance was sure he had seen extra pages stuck in between the covers. It was definitely a magazine. Something tells Lance that it's not a playboy or anything within _that_ range, but he can't resist teasing his irate classmate a bit. “I knew you couldn’t be such a goodie-two shoes. Not when you wear those ugly-ass _gloves_ with your uniform.”

 

Pidge pipes up helpfully from across them, “Literally nothing you just said made any sense.”

 

“Irrelevant,” He dismisses her good-naturedly with a snort. “But, Keith’s just being a _boy_.” he says salaciously, waggling his eyebrows.

 

“What?” Keith splutters, glaring daggers at Lance as he stands up to tower over the table. “I wasn’t—I-I _don’t_ -”

 

Large hands lightly thump against their table, “ _Guys,”_ Hunk hisses. “Flirt later, will you? You two are loud. And Lance, stop picking on Keith, for god's sake.”

 

Cue the simultaneous outraged cries of protest. “Oh, go on, you.” Lance grouses, sitting back down in his chair. “this was just a bout of friendly jousting. I wanna know what’s gotten Mullet boy so fixated.”

 

Keith levels him with a glare. “Piss. _off,”_ he repeats, before turning back to his book and it’s secret contents. This time, however, he angles his seat away from Lance’s prying eyes.

 

“Aw, c’mon dude,” Lance needles, “Now I’m curious.” He makes another swipe for the book in Keith’s hands, and Keith retaliates by pushing Lance away and keeping him at arm’s length with a flat palm against his face. They scrabble like children, with grunts and soft swearing, much to Hunk's dismay.

 

Their altercation is brought to a halt when the door slams open again.

 

“Sorry everyone, Commander Iverson had to leave last minute and I wasn’t, er, _available_ right away to take his place. And Lance, Keith. Stop whatever the hell it is you two are doing,” a new, tired voice speaks over Keith’s angry muttering.

 

It’s Takashi Shirogane, their Aero 401B TA, and a walking thirst trap. Well, _usually_ . Today, he just looks like something the cat dragged in—his dual toned hair sticks out at odd angles and his shirt is half tucked in and rumpled. He has bags, nay, _suitcases,_ under his eyes. Even his glare doesn’t seem to have much effect, it’s dulled down like the rest of him.

 

Lance throws him a confused glance after taking in his scruffy appearance, but Shiro’s own thundercloud demeanour brooks no argument. He sinks into his seat with his arms crossed and a full-on sulk coming to the forefront, “Keith’s the one with the dodgy erotica!” he says petulantly.

 

Shiro frowns at Lance because of his aggravating pipes and raises an eyebrow at Keith, “Hmm? While I’m not supposed to really care about what you do when you’re not in class, I _did_ walk in a minute ago. You know what to do, Keith.”

 

Keith’s ears have gone a spectacular shade of scarlet and it clashes marvellously with his Garrison jacket. He ignores Shiro’s words.

 

“Why do you look like shit?” he asks instead, eyebrows furrowed and a small frown gracing his face. He obstinately sticks his chin in the air.

 

Now, up to this point, the rest of the class hadn’t been paying too much attention to the little verbal altercation taking place at the back of the room. It’s a norm. According to them, Lance and Keith barely interact unless they're trying to antagonise each other, and usually a third party’s always dragged in as damage control. They were used to it and they _avoided_ it.

 

But at Keith’s inflammatory words—and this time not directed at the usual suspect—their ears perk up and their lips fall silent, but only after a resounding gasp flies across the room. Even though everyone knows that Keith has a somewhat special relationship with Shiro, a ward-like liaison or something more akin to adoptive brothers (whatever it is, they’re close), he barely speaks in this class. It’s like the two don’t know each other within these classroom walls—they don’t abuse their bond, and everyone is grateful for that.

 

But to suddenly hear him speak with such candour. Now, _that’s_ interesting.

 

Lance finds himself gawking at Keith as well. Someone’s in trouble, if Shiro’s ruddy face is anything to go by.

 

Surprisingly enough, Shiro doesn’t say anything back. Or maybe it’s not all that remarkable. The man has endless patience, literally any of Lance’s interactions with him are a testament to that fact. Even now, he looks like he’s on the verge of saying something, but holds back instead.

 

He silently holds his hand out for Keith’s book and takes it back to his desk at the front of the class, ignoring the hushed whispers that are flying around him. Lance laments that he’s probably never going to find out what Keith had been reading.

 

Shiro clears his throat, and he once again has the class’ undivided attention. “All right, so we’re starting up the Stardeck simulations today. I want all of you to use this first half hour to formulate a plan with your teammates for today.

 

Lance is one of the first people to get up to try and find a(nother) team. He's going to miss Pidge and Hunk, but he takes a peek at Keith's still frowny face, and gets up without any more hesitation.

 

“-Your teammates,” Shiro’s voice booms in his ear. “are your current desk mates and will stay like that until the end of the term.”

 

He plops back down with a defeated sigh. “Looks like I’m stuck with _you_ ,” he says to Keith, watching Shiro as he moves over to the other side of the class.

 

Keith responds just as glumly. “Look, I’m not happy about this either, so you stay in your lane and I’ll stay in mine. Hopefully we won’t mess up too badly then.”

 

Lance spits into his palm and holds it out for Keith to shake. “Truce?” he says with a nod, hoping to keep the peace.

 

Keith looks at his hand dubiously. From behind him Hunk lets out a muted “ew.”

 

“That was a very...juvenile display, right there,” he returns with a slightly wrinkled nose (and Lance revels in his discomfit) but nevertheless, he shakes.

 

“I bet you’re glad you’re wearing those gloves of yours, eh?” Pidge mutters beside him. When he doesn’t respond, she starts cackling.

 

Lance, on the other hand, is almost surprised that Keith shook on it, but he’s not complaining, he just wants to get downstairs, like, two minutes ago. “Right-o, let’s talk roles, yeah?” he says, getting into it right away. He pulls out his backpack and grabs a creased manual from its depths. He flips to a page that labels possible squad positions for every documented scenario and flattens it on on their desk. “Now, shoot.”

 

“I want communications,” Pidge says immediately, not even sparing the manual a glance.

 

“Engineering.” Hunk follows with a shrug.

 

Huh, It seems like everyone already knew what they wanted to do. Lance hums, looking pleased. “Great, that lets me pilot and Keith can co—wait, where’d he go?!” he says irritably, looking around him. Somewhere within the last two seconds the shorter boy had managed to give their table the slip. “He’s impossible,” Lance huffs. “We had a truce!”

 

“Keep your pants on,” Pidge chastises him. “Look,” she says, pointing discreetly to their front. “He just went to talk to Shiro.”

 

“He’s _way_ too attached.” Lance grumbles.

 

Pidge smacks him atop the head with a rolled up manual, “Stop being a prick, he’s obviously concerned about Shiro. Just look at _that_ , and tell me you’re not at least curious.” She gestures at Shiro’s dishevelled form. Lance feels himself concede to her logic.

 

“Doesn’t mean he can bail on us whenever he feels like it,” he says glumly, rubbing his crown.

 

“Yo, looks like things aren’t going well for Keith,” Hunk says in a low voice, leaning in close to his teammates. “He needs to _back off_ or he’s gonna get chewed out.”

 

Hunk’s right. Keith and Shiro seem to be in the middle of a heated discussion, whispering angrily in hushed tones. At one point, Keith smacks a fist into his palm and Shiro actually turns an angry shade of red.

 

“Whoa, I do _not_ wanna know what they’re talking about.” Pidge says.

 

It was like fate was trying to spite her, because Shiro suddenly blows up, “I am _fine! Just give it a rest!”_

 

 _“_ Yeah, just like _you’re_ getting any?! Shiro you need to talk to someone about this _-”_

 

“Keith _,_ one more word from you and I won’t hesitate to give you a slip and send you out. _You cannot come in here and just_ push _your weight around and expect it to work!”_

 

For the second time in those short few minutes, the class falls silent. So does Keith.

 

“I was just looking out for you,” he says mournfully, before turning tail and walking out of the room.

 

Shiro looks upset, and he looks like he's about to go after Keith, but he collects himself and then addresses the class. “Ten minutes more and you all are to go down to the simulation chambers,” he says in clipped tones. “Then you’re free until your next class.”

 

The class grudgingly gets back to work. But before Pidge, Hunk and Lance get a chance to start their assignment, Shiro walks up to them with an apologetic look on his face.

 

“I’m sorry you three are one man down today,” he says. “But I’m pretty sure Keith will show up for the classes after this. _Or else I’ll make him,_ ” he adds ominously.

 

Lance waves it off, “Nah, it’s okay.” He grins. “Pretty sure we can handle it.”

 

Shiro nods, and heads back back to his desk—and as he does, Lance meets his eyes once more.

 

And gasps.

 

All of a sudden, his stomach churns and he feels his vision go blurry. He hears a muffled exclamation from next to him, but he's too drained to do anything about it.

 

“...”

 

“Lance, _Lance!_ Are you all right?” It’s a whispered scream. Strong hands clamp around his shoulder. Hunk’s shaking him. Lance’s head _hurts._

 

He hasn’t blacked out completely, but he’s slumped against his desk, and, luckily, no one seems to have noticed apart from his teammates. “I had a vision,” he gasps weakly, staring hard at Shiro from over Hunk's shoulder.

 

“Oh, no,” Pidge says, her tone dark. She follows his line of sight, “It’s Shiro, isn’t it?”

 

Lance nods. “I don’t think we have time to get into this now, but we’re definitely talking about this later.”

 

“Right, we have a simulator to wreck.”

* * *

 

 

**LANCE - 10:15 am, Galaxy Garrison: Aero401 B - Simulations**

 

“Great, so we can definitely do this with just the three of us. Co-piloting’s kinda pointless on a Stardeck anyway,” Lance says sunnily. But his smug look slips into a frown when Hunk and Pidge move on ahead to their simulator. That argument between Shiro and Keith was unprecedented. He tries to squash any feelings of worry or concern he felt for the angry young man who was sitting next to him barely a few minutes ago. Besides, Keith had left and now he was-

 

Oh.

 

- _Sitting in the pilot’s seat_.

 

 _Hmm_. Scratch that, now that he’s actually here, everything Lance felt just now seems to have gone up in smoke.

 

“Took you three long enough,” Keith gripes.

 

Yeah, all gone.

 

“WHat are you doing here?” Hunk asks in bewilderment. “I thought...”

 

Keith arches a thick eyebrow at Hunk, daring him to finish his sentence. “Thought what?” he drawls. Hunk doesn't finish, he looks away with a gulp instead.

 

Lance, however, is not one to follow social cues when they’re needed the most, “Yeah, after you and Shiro got all pissy with each other, we thought you bailed on us,” he offers candidly.

 

Keith had looked like his usual grumpy self when they walked in, maybe a bit more angstier than usual if his pinched frown was anything to go by, but it was nothing close to the emotional face he had on when he walked out ten minutes ago. However, the second Lance said what he had to, the rage was back in his eyes and Hunk and Pidge groaned in unison at Lance’s tactless remark.

 

“Don’t talk to me about things that don’t concern you,” he says hotly, before swivelling around in his seat. “Get to your posts, we’re gonna blow this deck sky high.”

 

What? “No, _no._ Hold the phone, McMullet _!_ ” Lance says. “We’ve decided on positions already. Hunk’s on the machinery, Pidge is doing comms...”

 

“So, we’re on track.” Keith snarks.

 

“...And _I_ am the first officer.”

 

There's a pregnant pause, and then, “Like hell you are.”

 

“All right, listen here, you,” Lance says, seeing red himself. “If you had just stuck around for a couple of minutes instead of rushing into a fight, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”

 

“Oh yeah? Well that’s too bad, because I was here first!”

 

“Dude, you want to turn this flight simulation into a _fight_ simulation, you’re all ‘hur, hur, hur, I’ll just shoot first and ask questions later.’” Lance waves his hands around him erratically, as if that somehow mimicked Keith’s behaviour. It didn’t. “I should be the one to lead first, clearly our grades depend on it.”

 

Keith scoffs, “That’s a load of bull, today’s simulation is without an objective nor grades—we’re only using it for a trial, so if we wanna shoot, then we’re damn well gonna _shoot_.

 

Hunk and Pidge watch the bickering pair with bored looks. “How long do you think it’ll take ‘till they realise we started the simulator?” she asks him.

 

“Ugh,” is all Hunk says. He tugs on the bandana around his head, it’s a nervous tick of his, “I’m going to buckle up, I get motion sickness pretty easily.”

 

“Roger that, Echo One.”

 

“-If this was a real spaceship, I’d toss you out the airlock at the first chance I get!” Lance yells.

 

“-I’d do the same!”

 

“Oh, for Sagan’s sake. Keith, Lance!”

 

Simultaneous screams, _“What_!” they say.

 

“Shut the _hell_ your _mouth.”_

 

It nearly forces a hysterical giggle out of Lance, but he’s all too aware of Pidge’s digression towards aggressive memeing when she gets _really fucking mad,_ so he pulls a neutral face and steps away from Keith with a deep breath.

 

“Was there a reason for those perfectly dulcet tones of yours, Pidgey?”

 

“We took off, like,” she peers at the screen behind Lance, “three minutes ago and unless you two _get your act together_ we’re going to crash in another thirty seconds.”

 

“Aw shit.”

 

Without any preamble, they assume their positions, Lance ends up in the co-pilot’s seat, but he really doesn’t have time to fight Keith over his, er, rightful position.

 

“Thrusters up,” says Keith, and then, “Charlie One, What’s our ETA?”

 

“Twenty seconds and counting,” says Pidge.

 

“And what’re we approaching?”

 

“Keith, just look at the screen, you gob. It’s right _there._ We’re gonna hit Halley’s Comet unless we move,” Lance says snidely.

 

“I’m just following _protocol,_ although now I believe that’s something you’ve _conveniently_ forgotten about. No, let’s blow it up.”

 

Lance gives him an incredulous look, an _are-you-out-of-your-goddamned-mind?_ -type of look. _“Or_ we could do the normal thing and side sweep it. You do realise that this is a historical periodic comet, right?”

 

“It’s a bunch of pixels on a _simulator.”_

 

“Ten seconds,” Pidge says blandly.

 

Hunk starts yelling, _“C’mon_ you two, just make a decision already!”

 

Lance makes a grab for the handles and pulls them past the comet and into a small static cropping of floating asteroids just as Keith pushes down on their ship’s defences.

 

“What the hell do you two think you’re doing?” Pidge shouts as their ship lurches to the side in a sickening manoeuver.

 

They dodge the comet but the missiles that Keith’s just launched blow apart the asteroid group and sends a bunch of debris ricocheting around them. “You should’ve flown down!” Keith says angrily to Lance.

 

“And _you_ should’ve stayed away from the ammunition!” Lance fires back.

 

“Guys, impact in, four... three... _ouch!”_ Hunk slams back into his seat, as an asteroid bigger than their ship crashes into their back and their chamber goes dark.

 

Pidge’s glare seems a thousand times more intense against the blinking red lettering on their screen that reads ‘ _SIMULATION: FAILED,’ "_ Next time, why don’t you stick to a script, eh? Maybe then we’ll last longer than three _stupid_ minutes,” she says darkly and pulls Hunk out of the room with her. “Find us when you two are ready to grow the fuck up.”

 

Hunk looks like he wanted to go about this the good cop way, but he opens his mouth, shuts it, and then with a short, resigned sigh, lets Pidge drag him outside.

 

Now left alone, the two boys round up on each other, “You-” Lance starts, and then stops, deflating faster than a loose balloon. “Ugh, this was as much my fault as it was yours,” he says ruefully.

 

Keith looks just as ashamed. “I was still angry from earlier,” he says in a stiff voice. “Didn’t mean to go off on everyone and let things get so out of control.”

 

They don’t apologise, but nod awkwardly at each other in understanding and then high tail it out of the chamber, but not before they crash horribly into the door.

* * *

 

 

**PIDGE - 6:45 pm, Galaxy Garrison: Entrance 1B, outside the Mess Hall**

 

“-So then _I_ tell him that Doctor Strange probably gave up the Time Stone because Tony’s life, _for some reason,_ was more important—and by that I mean he’s probably going to be paramount to defeating Thanos in the next movie.”

 

“But Allura _,_ what’s one dude in a fancy mecha-suit going to do against someone who is omnipotent, omnipresent _and_ omniscient?” Matt pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and peers at his phone, reading through the stones’ descriptions (for the fourth time that day) “Why’d they make him so OP?”

 

“I don’t know" she says, sounding exasperated. Allura waves her hands wildly in the air around her before continuing. "—it's a bit different from what I remember from the comics. But, Tony Stark’s _smart,_ he’ll figure something out...”

 

Pidge rolls her eyes and slides down the wall they’ve been hiding behind. This is painful, her legs are cramping and she’s gotten a bunch of ants nipping at her ankles. It’s going to hurt like a bitch later. “Psst, Lance, I can’t take this any longer—spying on my brother and his friends isn’t really my idea of an extracurricular activity.”

 

“Yeah, I need to get started on the EMF detector, can we hurry up?” Hunk says in agreement. “Also, Allura’s right. Doctor Strange could have just sacrificed Iron Man and turned back time to before the whole debacle started— _but he didn’t._ And that's the tea.”

 

“Quiet, you two, we aren’t here for Matt,” Lance snaps. “or conspiracy theories.” he adds as an afterthought.    

 

“Yeah, you just wanna check out Keith. I don’t know why you just can’t do that in your own time—you two practically have all your classes together.”

 

Lance doesn’t turn around but his ears turn bright red. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I can’t _stand_ Keith. Besides, I’m here for Shiro and the,” his voice drops to a conspirative whisper, “You-know-what.”

 

Pidge shrugs, categorising the tint Lance has taken on and shelving it away to ponder over at a later time. “I dunno what you’re trying do _here,_ though. I can’t see either of them. It’s just Matt and Allura, and honestly, I really, really, _really,_ don’t want to watch him try and hit on our club president and then fail like the loser he is. It's too tragic”

 

“Wait a sec,” Lance mutters, pressing into the wall and effectively hiding between a messy tangle of ivy strands. “They’ll be here in a bit—oh, there we go, I see ‘em now.”

 

Keith’s walking fast, out the door and towards the gates. He tears past Matt and Allura without as much as a ‘hello’ even after they call out to him, but it’s with a strange sort of single-mindedness that he surges on forward.

 

Shiro runs past them a moment later. He’s calling out to Keith as well.

 

“How do you even know they’d be here anyway?” Hunk asks suddenly.

 

Pidge tosses Lance a sidelong glance, this particularly turbulent relationship between her two friends never made sense to her. Sometimes, she wonders that if they just got along instead of doing _whatever_ it was they were doing right now, they'd all be able to hang out properly instead of forcing her to split her time between two groups.

 

Lance stiffens, but doesn’t answer.

 

“Good god, you totally know Keith’s routine, don’t you?”

 

“What— _no,_ it’s just whenever I see Matt and Allura together, I usually see Shiro and Keith with them—they’re like, a little gang or something. Anyway, shut up and keep your ears to the ground,” Lance whispers angrily and pointedly keeps his gaze fixed on the scene going on in front of him.

 

“Keith! Could you just hold on for a moment!” Shiro pleads. “Look, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to go off on you like that.”

 

“...”

 

“Keith,” He plants his hand on the younger boy’s shoulder. “Just look at me for a second, will you?”

 

Keith turns around, because that’s his only option left, “What?” he grunts.

 

For a second, Shiro doesn’t say anything, he just looks at Keith with a small frown. “Talk to me,” he finally replies.

 

Keith gives in a bit. “I could say the same for you," he stops and sighs heavily, "but all right—I’m just mad at you, for now. Give me a while to cool my head,” he mumbles. “You’ve been so weird ever since you shifted to your aunt’s place. Do you even sleep anymore?”

 

Allura and Matt catch up to them with worried looks on their faces. “Is everything okay?” Allura asks.

 

Shiro gives her a half-smile. “Sorta, just…water under the bridge. Hopefully?” he directs the last bit at Keith.

 

“Sure, whatever. Just tell us what’s going on.”

 

Shiro deflates for a moment. “I dunno,” he says wearily. “I _do_ feel off, though, now that you mention it. I’m pretty sure it’s just stress from the shift. I’m always tired now, and y’know...”

 

Matt looks at him curiously, “Well, go on,” he says when Shiro just looks at then without saying anything.

 

He pulls a face. “Keith’s right, I think my insomnia’s back.”

 

At this, Pidge feels her gut twist _._ She presses her head back against the wall she was leaning against.

 

 _No, not again_ , _he's already been through so much._

 

“Shiro, this is serious!” says Allura. “You should probably see someone about this.”

 

“It’s been a year since anything like this has happened, I just thought it was a one time thing.”

 

“ _Clearly_ that’s not the case.” Keith gently chides him. “And Allura’s right, we can go back to Dr. Hedricks this Saturday.”

 

“Right, you'll have to drop me if it's in the morning though. I don't know why, but I've been losing my keys nearly everyday for the last two weeks,” Shiro groans, “I really need to get settled in.“

 

Lance ducks down from his perch. “Oh no, he’s got one. Shiro has a ghost.”

 

“It’s not conclusive,” Hunk says, surreptitiously eyeing the prosthetic on Shiro’s right arm.  Everyone knows Shiro was in the military for a while before he was honourably discharged and stationed at the Garrison. Hunk doesn’t need to complete his sentence, they know exactly what Hunk’s talking about.

 

“I say both situations are equally bad,” says Pidge, voicing everyone's thoughts, “but he had a pretty bad run in with PTSD when he first got back from his base. Matt and I used to go over to his apartment and keep him and Keith company sometimes, I know what he looked like when he was trying to deal with it,” she jerks a thumb at the group, “And I think it’s _that_ over a haunting.”

 

“He keeps losing his keys.”

Pidge rolls her eyes, “Could be a sign of a poltergeist, _or_ it could be his stress getting to him. Lance, you’re way too hung up on this. We usually get more evidence before making a claim as _brazen_ as this one.”

 

“And what about my vision?”

 

“You said you didn’t _see_ anything!”

 

“But I felt nauseous, I swear it was a premonition—just not a very good one, perhaps.”

 

Hunk interrupts them, “Yeah, you felt nauseous because you skipped breakfast today!”

 

Lance raises his arms in indignation, “I had _an apple!_ ”

 

“Which is nothing compared to the spread you usually go for otherwise. I wouldn’t blame you for getting a few hunger pangs.”

 

“I’m telling you, I know what I felt-”

 

“Er, guys…” Pidge suddenly says softly, eyes trained on something, nay, _someone_ walking up behind them. They should probably leave now. “We gotta go.”

 

No one listens to her.

 

“Look, It’s not like we can just walk up to them and say, ‘Ay, yo. Shiro, you’re _haunted_ by something and t _hat’s_ why you feel like shit and look like you’re gonna keel over any second now _.’_ No, don’t be ridiculous, Lance _”_

 

“- _Guys!”_

 

“But it doesn’t feel right just sitting on something as big as this.”

 

“Pidge is going over to Shiro’s place with Matt this Friday. She can scope it out, if that will make you stop—because for the record, I’m still not convinced.”

 

“I-” Pidge grabs Lance's shoulder with a frustrated growl before he can say anything else and tugs him upwards, twisting him away from Shiro and Co., she does the same to Hunk right after that.

 

It's too late now, she has to work her damage control. Thinking quickly, Pidge stuffs a hand into her jumper and pulls it back out, fists clenched tightly around something small.

 

A shadow falls across their hiding spot and stretches up the walls they’re pressed against.

 

It's Keith. He looks confused but his expression gives way to something colder and a lot more guarded when his gaze lands on Lance sandwiched between Hunk and Pidge. “What are you three doing here? Are you _spying_ on us?” Keith says, the accusation in his voice raises it up by a few decibels.

 

“Uh,” Lance scuttles backwards, his butt and palms grazing against the rough asphalt. “ _No_ —Ow, these jeans aren't the thickest, yeah? Ha ha h-”

 

“What. Are. You. _Doing_. Here?” he repeats, and then directs his glare at Hunk.

 

“ _Hurk_ ,” says Hunk.

 

Pidge, on the other hand, isn't all that bothered about Keith's temper, she's used to it. Instead, she's scrambling around her pockets with reckless abandon.

 

She jumps up with something small and shiny in her hand. “Found it!” she crows, startling everyone around her. “Oh—hey, Keith.” she continues nonchalantly, like she hadn't seen him walk up to them just a few moments prior. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she chides him when he continues to glare at her with a fixed stare of her own. “we aren’t following you lot.”

 

“Would _you_ at least tell me what's going on?” he finally pleads with her.

 

Pidge tries her luck.

 

“Lance dropped Hunk’s EMF stabilizing unit,” she says, holding out the small cylinder. “Thought it was a battery for his light up kicks—we were, er, just looking for it after it rolled down here.”

 

Hunk looks at her like she's lost her mind. “But, that _is_ a ba-” he starts at the same time Lance yelps, “I didn't—what? No one's supposed to know I have those-”

 

“ _Stabilizing_ _unit_ ,” she says firmly, tossing them a glower over her shoulder and quickly shoving the thing back into Hunk’s fanny pack before Keith can get a good look at it. Their mouths snap shut with resounding clicks.

 

Keith looks blankly at the three of them. “I'm going to give you the benefit of doubt here,” he says, frowning suspiciously at the trio.

 

Hunk pulls Lance and Pidge up and away from Keith, “Ha ha, yeah. Totally innocent from… _whatever_.” He takes a step back, “We’ll see you around yeah?”

 

Pidge goes easily with him, waving goodbye to a very confused Keith. Shiro, Allura and Matt are still by the entrance, but they’ve noticed them by now, and so she waves at them as well.

 

But Lance shakes Hunk’s hand off his shoulder, bringing them to a stop. He looks conflicted, brows furrowed and bottom lip worried between his teeth.

 

Him thinking this much was never a good sign.

 

Lance’s gaze clears, and he reaches into his jacket to pull out a slim box from its depths.

 

_Aw, hell no._

 

“Lance!” Pidge whispers furiously, “Don’t do this! I just managed to get us out of trouble by the skin of my teeth!”

 

He shakes his head, “No can do,” he says out of the corner of his mouth. “I know what I saw, and I am _not_ going to sleep on this. Shiro’s in trouble.” He pulls out a card from the case and give it to Keith.

 

To him he says, “Keep this on you, you might need it later.”

 

Pidge decides she wants to be as far away as possible for the eventual fallout, she slowly edges away from the two boys, and isn’t surprised to see Hunk doing the same beside her.

 

Keith squints at the card in his hands. It’s a dark purple ensemble with a number and an address printed out in a gold, Courier font—it’s fancy in a weird sort of way. He flips it over, but it’s devoid of a title, or anything that indicates an association of sorts.

 

But then the light glances off it and it reveals a clear-foil stamp of a ghost with a magnifying glass.

 

“Is this your number?” he asks blandly, “It’s a bit…over the top, isn’t it?”

 

“Ye—wait, _no!”_ Lance screeches, and another blush steals across his face. He scowls at Keith. “It’s _our_ number,” he says, holding his pointer finger up and waving it in a circle between Pidge, Hunk and himself.

 

“Okay, but why.”

 

“We’re paranormal investigators. That’s why we have-”

 

“-A ghost on the card. And, that’s weird—although I can get behind that as well, but, _why_.”

 

Lance gives him a dirty look, “Shut up and listen to me,” he says. He beckons Keith to come closer, and only speaks once he does. “All right, look I’m not trying to be insensitive here, but I don’t think a trip to the doc’s is gonna help Shiro _completely_. There’s something else at play here, I’m sure of it—we can help.”

 

Keith’s face turns paler than it could have possibly have ever gone, and the look on his face is absolutely murderous.

 

_Lance, ya goof._

 

“I thought you said you were looking out for stabilizers!” he says in a dangerous voice. He takes a step closer to Lance, hands swinging out to fist in his collar, but the taller boy dances away with a nervous chuckle.

 

“Now, now, buddy _-”_ Lance tries cajolingly, but Keith’s having none of it.

 

”So, I get we've had our differences," he grits out, taking another step and crowding into Lance's personal space, "But take your psychic, mumbo jumbo _bullshit_ with you and get the hell away from us, all right?" He leans in and this time his hand manages to grab a fistful of Lance's jacket, " _Now."_

 

Shiro’s shout of alarm drifts over to them, but he’s forgotten in the moment.

 

It's enough though, to redirect Lance's priorities, getting himself out of Keith's clutches in one piece is his biggest issue right now. “Just keep the card, okay?” he yells as he backs away quickly.

 

Pidge decides that the smartest decision that Lance had made so far that day, was to listen to Keith and run like his life depended it on it.

 

(Because it probably, _actually_ did)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a kudos if you liked this, and a review??? THANKS!!
> 
> Also, I'm looking out for a beta reader and I'm welcoming song suggestions for the titles—I'm going down a Halloween playlist right now, but anything with spooky lyrics or just a generally dark ambience is welcome!
> 
> (The title for this chapter is a play of Van Halen's "Runnin' With the Devil" and the title of the entire fic is from SIAMES' "The Wolf" — check out their music video, it's brilliant!)
> 
> (I GOT THIS CHAPTER CHECKED BY A BETA! THE LOVELY [SILVAMOON](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvamoon)! YOUR BRAIN WON'T HURT READING THIS NOW! AY!)


	2. I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro's blissfully unaware. Keith's forced to confront a literal demon. Pidge shoots zombies and Matt drops stuff.
> 
>  
> 
> (Content warning! A bit of blood and an injury in the third segment. Also a creepy ghost, but that's in the tag already. )

**SHIRO - Saturday, 6:15 p.m, Mortlake Manor**

 

Maybe he should go back—sell off the house and shift back into the poky, little apartment that he used to rent with Keith at the corner of Richmond Park and Aldgate, but he doubts it’s going to do him much help. Keith’s dorming with someone else next to the Garrison, and now it doesn't matter if he was alone here or back at the apartment.

 

Keith had helped him move into the Manor, but when he was leaving, he had remarked that the sheer size of the house had given him the creeps. Shiro thought he might have been onto something there. But, it’s like he told Keith and the others that day after the incident in Aero401, it’s just been a bunch of stress from the change—and now doing things completely differently. Everything has built up like a pressure cooker at the back of his mind and was now ready to pop off at any minute. His nightmares have also gotten worse and Shiro has found himself pacing his new, and overly opulent kitchen at the weirdest hours into the night.

 

A door slams shut somewhere down the hall. Shiro leaps up in a panicked reflex, eyes misting over and his right hand held out in front of him like a barrier, before he realises where he is and slumps back into his bed.

 

_Damned drafts._

 

He groans and pulls his pillow over his head. The nap he had wanted to take before Matt, Pidge and Keith showed up for dinner never happened.

 

It’s small things like these that have also gotten him ridiculously keyed up as of late. Shiro’s not sure what’s happening anymore.

 

He’d woken up this morning to find all the windows on first floor wide open—Shiro remembers leaving the window by the kitchen open, a remnant of his last midnight jaunt, the unusual chill he got on his way down did its bit to wake him up—but the other seven windows? _Uh_. His memory is a bit fuzzy.

 

The rest of his day didn’t get any better. After nearly getting electrocuted making toast, and then somehow slipping in a puddle of inky, black coffee that he never spilled (and now that he thinks about it, Shiro had definitely been in the mood for a calming draught of herbal tea, god knows where that coffee came from) he took a shower that left him with a painful, blistering, red mark on his back after his preferred cold water turned scalding hot within a second.

 

Living alone had it’s perks of course, because he'd never be able to live down the childish yelp that left his lips or the way he ran out of the bathroom in the tiniest towel ever if he’d been rooming with someone.

 

And _then,_ to top it all off, he spent nearly an hour hunting down his keys only to find them thrown haphazardly on the hood of his car.

 

It was disconcerting. A hassle for sure. Shiro wishes he wasn’t so frazzled as of late, he just wants his day to go by without incident—but his day time shenanigans are not even half as bad as what happens when the sun _sets_.

 

They aren’t the same nightmares that would leave him gasping in the middle of the night, sheets bunched up tightly in his hands and sweat pouring down his head in rivulets.  

 

No, they weren't related to what he'd witnessed those six months when he was overseas.

 

These were… _different_ , not as horrific as his war nightmares, because those were of real events _,_ but these still came pretty damn close.

 

And although he can barely remember these dreams, there's an imminent feeling of danger, danger, _danger,_ swirling around his head when he gets up. His routine excursions downstairs raise the tiny hairs at the back of his neck and brings out the goosebumps, his mouth feels like it's been stuffed with cotton balls, his muscles _ache_.

 

He doesn’t know what to do.

 

It brings out a weird sense of paranoia in him, it's a familiar feeling, one he's being trying to escape for a few years now. He feels likes he's being constantly watched, but that's _ridiculous_ (right?) But when it gets dark, the shadows around the house move faster, darker, _bigger_. He hears sounds that he logically thinks he should not be hearing—like the screeching and the mournful wailing he heard the other day? Could have been an owl, or a cat, but at this point he doesn’t know if it’s reality or not. He's even checked the security cameras he installed outside the house after a particularly awful night. He saw no one.

 

Shiro decides it’s time he dragged himself out of bed to get ready for the others, it’s their first time visiting the Manor—even Keith has only seen it bare and still dusty.

 

There are a few boxes in the foyer that he has yet to sort out, and there’s the furniture that he had ordered from a tiny, quaint, local shop by the town square but still hadn’t picked up. The Manor’s starting to finally look like it has an owner.

 

As he swings himself out of his bed, he pats the gun he’s tucked under his mattress—another result of his newfound paranoia, it’s reassuring, if nothing else, and heads into his ensuite bathroom, sparing just five minutes to wash-up because he doesn’t want to look in the mirror and see the bags under his eyes or the sallowness of his skin.

 

He continues on with a bit of last minute prep, gets out the easy bake casserole he’d left in the oven before his (failed) nap, and then double checks the television in the hall to make sure his console’s connected. A Zombies campaign seemed like the best way to start off the night.

 

The bell rings. The party’s here.

 

**KEITH - 7:00 p.m, Mortlake Manor**

 

When Shiro opens the door, Keith’s instantly taken back to the Aero401 incident.

 

Because _damn_ , Shiro looks awful.

 

But he’s already said what he’s had to say, and tomorrow’s their trip to Dr. Hedrick’s. Hopefully Shiro will get some solace out of that.

 

Behind him, Pidge and Matt holler their salutations and resume jostling each other for a better angle around him to gape at the massive foyer they’ve just walked into. He gives Pidge a bit of a wide berth because he’s still mad at her for following them around last week with Hunk and Lance like a loon. He plans to ask her about that later, because while he can’t say the same for the other two, _her_ behaviour struck him as pretty strange.

 

He peers into the hall, and wow, this place looks even bigger than what he remembers.

 

“I wanna slide down the banister,” Matt says at once, and Pidge turns around to give him a reprimanding frown.

 

“You’re twenty-two, Matthew. Act like it,” she says primly before running up the staircase herself in madcap dash. “And I called dibs on the way here already!” Her cackles echo across the room.

 

Shiro catches hold of her collar and tugs her back. “How about we take a tour first before one of you inevitably end up breaking something and we have to cut the night short to get to the hospital?”

 

Pidge sticks her tongue out at him, “Stop being such an old man,” she says.

 

 _This is probably just what Shiro needed_ , Keith thinks, noting his friend’s first genuine, if slightly chagrined, smile in many, many days.

 

Shiro laughs and brings them to the hall. It had plush sofas with weirdly ornate flowers carved into them and an ornate coffee table that contrasted horribly against the console and his ratty old stereo system. “I don’t know if you want to see the entire house, it’s just so _big.”_

 

“Modesty? Thy name is Shiro,” says Matt with a chortle.

 

Keith shakes his head, “He's right though, this place has like, what? Eight bedrooms on the second floor alone.” He shudders and turns to Shiro, “I know I like my solitude and all, but this takes the cake.”

 

Shiro shrugs and says, “Someone had to look after the house after my great-aunt died. I wish I wasn’t the only next of kin she had—I barely knew the lady so all of this feels really weird _.”_

 

 _“_ Dude, think of all the parties you could have here,” says Matt, eyes misting over. “All the babes you could pick up.”

 

Pidge snorts, “Shiro hasn’t partied since he was out of the womb.”

 

“Ouch, that was harsh." Matt says as Shiro scowls and crosses his arms across his chest

 

"Alright, Alright, I get it—I’m a hundred years old,” Shiro mumbles darkly and beckons vaguely in front of them. Keith and Pidge share and amused glance and follow the motion “Follow me, I’ll do this as quickly as possible and then we can get some COD running.

 

They nod eagerly and he takes them from the hall straight to the kitchen. _Kitchens._ They were large and brick tiled, with long slit windows that ran almost completely from top to bottom. Keith knew that all Shiro had on him was a mini fridge and a couple of saucepans that he never bothered to use. His situation was just ridiculous.

 

“Why...would anyone need two?” Matt stares around at the massive room in amazement. “Especially you,” he nods at Shiro. “all you can do is burn water.”

 

Shiro regards Matt with his nose in the air. “I have a _casserole_ on the table!”

 

“Easy bake?”

 

“...Maybe,” says Shiro, making a point to avoid his smug gaze. “Anyway, I never wanted two of these,” he points at a door a bit further down the room that leads to the smaller, pantry stocked kitchen. “But the Manor’s over a hundred and fifty years old and I never bothered to get into its history, but I’m assuming they had a big household.”

 

“Sounds fair.”

 

They move on to peek into to a dining room that’s just as grand as the kitchens, but much _emptier_ because of its lone dining table and nothing else _._ It has a desolate air about it that makes everyone shiver as they pass through. Shiro claims that there’s literally no point of him ever using the room because he likes to eat his dinner in front of the telly.

 

“But the one thing that I really like about this place,” he says, “-is this room.” He stops in front of a large oak door and makes a big ceremony out of pulling out a huge brass key from his pocket. “Drum roll,” he says and Matt and Pidge oblige him, drumming the heels of their palms against the wall. Keith rolls his eyes, but deep down, he’s just as excited as them because this was one of the rooms he hadn’t gone into the first time he’d come around.

 

“Ta- _da,”_ he pushes the door open with a flourish.

 

“You have. _A library!”_ Pidge shrieks right into Keith’s ears and barges in unceremoniously. Her voice sounds muffled because she’s already managed to get lost between the stacks. “Think of all the _knowledge_ stored in this room, oh my god.”

 

“It’s pretty neat,” Shiro says between snickers.

 

Keith’s poking at his ear, because _fuck_ , Pidge had a strong set of vocal cords on her. But he steps in and feels right at home between the books, no matter that his literary curve isn’t as impressive as Shiro’s or Pidge’s.

 

It’s a gorgeous room with two floors that are crammed ceiling to floor with books, and stained glass windows that look like they’ve been put in fairly recently—at least to Keith’s untrained eye. They’re not conventional pictures, but are rather abstract and filled with various shades of purple, red and gold.

 

There’s a narrow, spiraling staircase that leads straight up to a door in the wall in one corner, and Shiro explains with a twinkle in his eye that it leads _right to his room._ Now, that’s just metal.

 

The maze of shelves in the center of the room comes with a portable and collapsible step ladder, and Keith kinda wants to roll about on it, but he quells the childish urge and turns to eye the humongous fireplace in the corner of the room. “God, this is perfect,” he breathes, taking in the detailed carving around the fire pit.

 

He wants to examine them further, but a shout stops him from moving on towards it. “Guys, where are you?”

 

Pidge…was lost.

 

“I have no fucking idea how to get out of here,” she says petulantly.

 

Matt nearly loses his head laughing at her, but the three each take an entrance into the little maze to find her.

 

“These books are so old, they don’t have ISBN numbers. Holy shit,” Matt’s voice carries over to him, but by the end of his sentence, his words sound like froth.

 

Keith grunts in response and he hears Shiro say something back, but he’s barely walked into the maze and everything’s starting to sound more and more muffled and muted with each step he takes. The maze is much bigger than its outsides let on, because he can’t see where his current passage ends and when he turns to look behind him, the entrance has already vanished.

 

Huh.

 

The air around him seems to still, and it feels like someone dropped ice right into his bones, he’s freezing—and it makes Keith pause. He can hear his heartbeat thumping slowly in his ears.

 

The silence becomes stifling.

 

His heartbeat quickens.

 

“ _Pidge!_ ” he yells at the top of his voice, partially because he still needs to find her, and partially because he needs to hear _something_. Anything. He’s not scared, it'll take him a while before he's ready to admit that, but he’s well past being uncomfortable. He walks back the way he had come, but he must have missed a turn somewhere because he hits a dead end.

 

The hair on his neck suddenly stands to attention, and then the floorboards creak, long and loud, behind him. There’s a muted tapping following it.

 

Keith spins around to be met with…

 

...nothing?

 

“Hello?” he whispers, hand coming to rest on the dagger at his hip.

 

More creaking from right in front on him, whoever it is is shrouded in the darkness—it’s coming towards him. Keith doesn’t know if he wants to walk towards it or dash madly _away_ from it. He decides he’s being stupid, so he stays put, squares up, and tries again.

 

“Is anyone there? Shiro? Matt? Pidge?” he tries a bit more boldly. The scuttling gets louder. “Hey!”

 

The timid, “Keith, is that you?” that comes from the side hits him with a sense of relief he hadn’t realised he was seeking. He pushes his dagger back into its sheath and curses himself for letting himself get riled up.

 

He follows the voice to a small gap in the shelves right in front of him that he had totally missed in his somewhat frazzled state, and squeezes into it.

 

“Pidge?”

 

She’s standing in the centre of a small landing with a small pile of books in her hands, her face looks pale, but that might have been due to the shoddy lighting and the purple glass. The beaming grin she gives him dispels whatever he might have seen on her face, “Took you long enough, if you’d left me in there any longer you would have found my skeleton in middle of all of this,” she jokes, but Keith can feel the relief pouring out of her.

 

“Let’s get outta here,” he says as she walks past him and out the opening, “this place gives me the creeps.” Pidge stops, and looks at him. “What?” he says defensively.

 

Pidge opens her mouth to speak, but shuts it. She shakes her head instead. “Nothing.” she says. “C’mon, let’s go. I’m freezing.”

 

“Uh, yeah. About that—I forgot. I think I’m lost as well.”

 

“What’s a few twists and turns gonna do. It’s not _that_ big,” she scoffs.

 

“You literally called us in to find you!”

 

“That’s because I can’t see shit in here.” she says. “Now, moooove.” She drags him down the passage with her.

 

They make it out a few seconds later, and Keith almost gets whiplash from how fast everything happened. The exit was _right_ there and they _Missed it?_

 

Matt and Shiro are sitting by the fireplace, they get up when they see them. “How nice of you two to finally join us,” says Matt, with a lazy roll of his eyes.

 

“What?” says Keith, narrowing his eyes at him. “I was out looking for Pidge, Just like you!”

 

“We came out fifteen minutes ago, the maze literally takes a couple of minutes to run through,” Shiro says slowly.

 

“But—”

 

“It’s ok,” Pidge says, she’s worrying her lip between her teeth, but then she looks up at them with a smile. “I was moving around quite a bit—I must have kept missing everyone on the way.”

 

Keith wants to ask her if she’s all right, because something just feels _off_ about her—but Shiro chooses that moment to usher them out of the library. “Hey, we should probably finish the tour?”

 

He points out a study attached to the library in the corner as they leave, but Keith’s not feeling it any longer. The library feels cold and dark now. But, the study’s cosy enough, and Keith can picture Shiro working on his grad papers well into the night like an old gent at his desk.

 

He bites down a chuckle at the image as they move out. “So there are three empty rooms here that are honestly quite useless at the moment, and there are two bathrooms on this floor but I still have to get them working.” Shiro jumps a bit at that, “Oh, yeah. Use the bathroom upstairs if you need it for anything! I’ll take you there right now.”

 

The tour concludes on that note, The groups heads up to the second floor and Shiro points out the bathroom, ignores the other seven rooms except the one that he’s using (“but even that’s still stuck in its bare bones stage,” he says) and leads them downstairs. “I suppose you guys don’t want to check out the attic or the basement?” he muses.

 

It’s a unanimous decision to skip those, and Keith finds himself agreeing a bit too eagerly with the motion.

 

Shiro claps his hands, “Right, I guess we're done with this.” he says. “Anyone up for a round of Zombies?”

 

**KEITH - 11:43 p.m, Mortlake Manor**

Two more rounds. Just two more, and then he's out.

 

Oh, but he's so _weak_.

 

He can hear the tap going off in the kitchen, Shiro's washing up a bit. He notes that the sink probably has a leaky faucet.

 

Keith grits his teeth and knocks out another zombie, they're doing the Shadows of Evil map, and the dripping pipes in the background are really setting him on edge.

 

Matt pours out another glass of coke for himself and Pidge slurps up the dregs from her own glass.

 

The sprinklers go off outside.

 

That does it for Keith.

 

His avatar dies on screen and he leaps up, “Be right back, I need the bathroom.”

 

Pidge yells at his retreating back, “Hey! We were at round sixty two, _we_ nearly _beat our highscore_!”

 

 _“I really_ need to go, Pidge! _”_

 

He disappears into the hallway, and bumps into Shiro who’s walking out of the kitchens. “What’s up?” Shiro asks when he see his friend’s slightly distressed face.

 

“Bathroom.”

 

“Oh, yeah. Use the one upstairs like I said earlier, there’s a spare across my room. It’s, er, one of the only two that work right now,” he says apologetically.

 

“Right.” Keith claps a hand on his shoulder and takes off, clamouring across the hall and taking the steps two at a time. Now he just has to figure out which room is Shiro’s. He hadn’t paid much attention to the tour when they came back up stairs because he’d been preoccupied with dealing with the aftermath of whatever the hell had gone down at the library with Pidge and the weird scuttling noises.

 

He takes a deep breath, now really wasn’t the time to indulge his overactive imagination.

 

Keith decides to work his way from his spot at the top of the staircase and check every room until he stumbled across Shiro’s room or the bathroom.

 

The first three aren’t even unlocked.

 

He’s about to open the fourth door when the lights start flickering. Keith checks behind him to see if anyone tried to mess with the switch, but obviously there’s no one there, the current must have just tripped or something for a hot second.

 

But then the chill’s suddenly back and Keith freezes in place. A floorboard creaks and settles into place and out of the corner of his eye he sees a flurry of movement. He turns quickly in its direction.

 

And, once again, he’s met with nothing.

 

Keith’s not sure what it is about the Manor that puts him on edge. But his skin crawls with discomfort. He shakes his head and continues to inspect the doors, the fifth room’s locked as well, as is the sixth and seventh.

 

He should have started from the other side.

 

Shiro’s room, as his luck would have it, is the very last one, and he reaches for the door across it. It opens, Keith’s found the bathroom. _Finally_! He notices a trail of footsteps and water tracks leading from the bathroom and into Shiro’s bedroom and shakes his head at the sight. Shiro needs a mop.

 

Within the span of a minute, Keith’s finishes up and is back out onto the hallway. Maybe it’s time he finally treated himself to a glass of coke now that his most pressing problem’s been taken care of.

 

He’s about to head back down when he realises something. _The water tracks are gone._ Keith blinks and stares hard at the floor. He didn’t _imagine_ them did he? That was way too much water to have evaporated in a few minutes. Besides, the footprints were still there.

 

Keith’s heart drops to his stomach when he notices that the prints are far too small to match anyone currently in the Manor. Pidge maybe, but even that seems like a stretch, it’s not like her to randomly muck about without her shoes on. These look like _children’s_ prints.

 

The lights flicker again and Keith’s fight _and_ flight responses finally kick in. He pulls out his dagger and swings it wildly around him before making a mad dash downstairs. Would the others even believe him if he told them? Did _he,_ himself, believe what he saw?

 

Keith skids into the hall—Matt’s messily sopping up some spilled coke. He gives him a guilty grin when he sees him, but it turns into a confused look when he pauses to really look at Keith’s pale face. “Is everything all right?” he asks.

 

“What’s all right?” Pidge looks up from her perch in front of the telly and eyes him curiously. “Dude, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

 

“Don’t even joke about that.”

 

Pidge jumps up at his words. “What—”

 

“Where did Shiro go?” he interrupts, not seeing him in the room. It’s probably not a good sign.

 

The dagger glints in his hands, a flashing sign for danger.

 

“You’re kinda freaking us out here, dude,” Matt says slowly and Keith scowls at him.

 

Keith chooses his words carefully, “I think there’s an… _intruder_ in the Manor,” he says in clipped tones.

 

Pidge looks at him with wide eyes, and there’s something in them that tells him that she knows exactly what he means. “Shiro left his coat in the library. He just left to go pick it up.”

 

_The water tracks. Shiro’s room. The winding staircase._

 

Keith starts running, blood pumping through his veins. “We need to go. _Now.”_ his tone brooks no argument.

 

They tear into the hallway, the flickering lights hampering their movement. Matt reaches the library first and wrenches the doors open, a cold blast of air hits him in the face, making him choke on nothing for a second. “Shiro! Are you in here?” he shouts.

 

Keith and Pidge slide to a stop beside him. “I can hear him moving around,” she says.

 

“Shiro?” Keith tries, this time a bit louder than Matt.

 

“Oh, what’s up?” Shiro says. They can’t see him, but his voice carries clearly across the room. He sounds like he’s coming out of his study. Keith points them in that direction and they move towards his voice. “Did something happen?” he continues, sounding surprised that all three of them were here. “Matt drop something again?”

 

“Funny,” Matt deadpans, he cranes his neck to looks around him. “But no, there’s something up with your Manor—Keith?” he prompts.

 

“Er, dunno how to say this, but I think someone got in,” Keith says warily. They’re almost at the study’s door, but there’s no sign of Shiro. “Where are you exactly?”

 

“Right...here?”

 

No that can’t be right. Matt, Pidge and Keith nearly do a one-eighty, following his voice. They see him all the way on the other side, right by the entrance—next to the fireplace—in the middle of a tug of war, trying to yank his jacket out from under a plush armchair. He looks up at them bemusedly. “What makes you think someone got in? There’s literally _nothing_ in here to grab.” he says, looking at them incredulously. “Wait, how did you even get all the way there, I would have se—”

 

Shiro’s standing right in front of them one second (albeit a bit of a distance away) and then the lights completely go off around the house. A splintering crack reverberates through the air, and everything after feels like it’s moving in slow motion. The bookcase above the pit wobbles, and Keith reacts faster than everyone else, but he’s too far away to cover any sort of reasonable distance. It crashes to the floor, kicking up a huge cloud of dust, and the shelves on the side follow suit. With a cry of alarm, Shiro goes down with the shelves, arms flying above his head to protect himself.

 

The lights come back on.

 

All’s still for a couple of seconds. They’re stuck in disbelief. Then the pile of books stirs and stills with a groan; it snaps everyone out of their stupor and they’re on the pile within seconds.

 

They dismantle the pile of books around Shiro. He’s a little bloody, but still conscious. “Ugh,” he says. “What just happened?” Keith and Matt move to his sides to heft him up. He shivers and tries to pull himself up, but with a cry of anguish, he folds back to the floor. “My leg,” he says between grunts. “I-can’t—”

 

A broken off chunk of shelf has sliced into his calf, probably tearing a bit of his muscle. Splinters track around the wound—it looks incredibly painful—but if Shiro hadn’t thought fast enough to guard himself, things could have easily gotten disastrous. Between Matt, Pidge and Keith, they manage to carry him to the sofa and deposit him gently against the cushions.

 

“I can get him to the hospital in ten minutes,” says Pidge, “Five, if I hit the gas hard.”

 

Matt and Keith nod, “Hey,” Matt says, crouching to look at Shiro. “Can you hang on for a bit? Pidge’ll get the car out front, and Keith and I will carry you in. Or does an ambulance sounds better?”

 

Shiro shakes his head. “Nah,” he says slowly with a grin. “‘M fine, just a bit scratched up. There’s a medkit in the kitchen, that’ll hold ‘till we get there.”

 

Keith stands up, “On it,” he says. “Gimme a second.”

 

“Wait,” says Pidge. “I’m coming with you. I need to get to my car. ”

 

They walk out in silence, and Keith quickly drops her off by the door. It's an unspoken agreement, because whatever any of this was, it had frightened Pidge.

 

He turns around to head off towards the kitchens, but Pidge lays a hand on the crook of his elbow and stops him. “I don’t know what happened just now, but those shelves didn’t fall just because they were _old.”_

 

Keith frowns at her, “What do you mean?”

 

She pulls out a handful of screws from her pocket. “I found these on the floor. They were _compromised.”_

 

 _“_ We have to tell Shiro about this!” Keith says. “I'll do it the second I get—”

 

“Don't,” Pidge implores, “he's still in shock, I think. Do it later.”

 

“What do you think this is about?” he asks her.

 

Pidge shrugs, “Could be anything. Not robbery for sure, there's nothing in this house to steal.” She grins but it turns sombre quickly, “but yeah, _anything.”_

 

 _"_ Uh. Okay.” Keith nods, feeling like he's missing out on something important here, and turns to go. “You're good now. Yeah?”

 

Pidge hums, “And Keith,”

 

He stops and waits for her to continue.

 

“Stay alert.”

 

With that vague but grim warning, Keith waves silently and makes his way to the kitchens without incident, creeping swiftly between doors to duck past the counter and retrieve the kit. It’s the way back has cause for concern.

 

He turns the corner into the hallway that leads back to the library when he sees it: A little figure peeking out from behind the door. At first he thinks it’s Pidge, and calls out to her, wondering why she'd suddenly decided to come back. She remains silent.

 

But then he feels it.

 

He feels it before he _sees_ it properly. First, it feels like the temperature drops into the negatives and then an overwhelming sense of dread fills his stomach.

 

The... _thing_ pushes past the door and turns its head to look him dead in the eye.

 

The weight of its stare makes him want to retch. It sucks him in like a black hole.

 

 _It_ looks like a little child, with no discernible features bar its all black sclera and white pupils. It doesn’t have a mouth, just a shiny expanse of pale, translucent, paper white skin that stretches over the hollow of where its mouth is supposed to be. Its hands end in sharpened points that clack against each other menacingly.

 

Each _claw_ is as big as his dagger.

 

They stop and regard each other, Keith stopped hearing anything from the second it laid its eyes on him and only the oppressive _thump, thump, thump_ -ing of his heartbeat in his ears is any indicator of them actually working. But instead of coming up to him and slicing him to ribbons, the wraith-like thing rushes in the opposite direction, and Keith’s instincts urge him to run after it, overriding the, smaller, saner voice in his head, that suspiciously sounds like Pidge, telling him to _run away, dammit._

 

He follows it down the hallway, running past the library, until he reaches the end, where it disappears.

 

There’s a lone door in the wall, waiting to be opened, and Keith goes ahead with it; despite his every cell in his body screaming in protest against the motion.

 

But it doesn't lead anywhere. He crashes into a blank wall and falls to the floor. And the wall terrifies him, because _who knows what's on the other side._

 

He stares at the wall in dawning horror, until, like a broken dam, the Pidge voice gets louder and floods his head. His instincts desert him and Keith regains control over his body—he can hear things again, or feel it. He's not sure but it's like the sound's being directly implanted into his head. Sounds of a shrill sort of mocking laughter—like a child, but distorted. All _wrong._

 

Slowly, he pivots in place.

 

And comes face to face with _it._

 

Keith’s transfixed to the spot. It brings up one of its clawed hands and suspends it in front of his face, forcing him to stare at it for a few seconds in pure, unadulterated horror until it slowly drags its sharpened nail down his face. Its non-corporeal form doesn’t cut through skin but goes _through_ it instead—ice flows into his veins, and Keith finds himself gasping for air.

 

He feels himself losing conscious, the air around him is thinner, colder. But his hand reaches for his knife, and pulling whatever he can from the last vestiges of strength in his body, he sends out a prayer to a god he barely believes in and swings out in an arc.

 

The blade makes no contact with the wraith, but its form splits and dissipates, swirling around him and into the door behind him and there's a sudden absence of _any_ sound. He falls back against the wall, feeling the chill seep out of him, and his eyes flutter shut until a sharp slap to his face brings him back.

 

 _“-ith, you can’t fall asleep!_ ”

 

It’s Pidge. She shakes him roughly, peppering his face with more light taps. “Shit, did it touch you?” she says.

 

“ _Mrph_.”

 

“Keith, seriously, stay with me.”

 

Pidge pulls a glass of coke out from somewhere and holds it under his nose. “Drink,” she says. “You’ll feel better once the sugar hits.”

 

It seems to work. The second he takes a sip, he feels his throat clear up, and his breathing regulates. “Did you...see it?” he croaks.

 

She peers down at him, brows furrowed. “I Sensed _something_. You can’t really see them that clearly.” 

 

Keith pauses. He feels like there's more to what Pidge is says but his head feels heavy and his brain is but a fogged up mess. “But, _I_ could. See it, I mean. Didn’t have a mouth, button eyes. Edward Scissorhands.” he mumbles.

 

“Oh. Okay, that’s a first,” Pidge says after a few moments in stunned silence, before getting back to business. “We need to get out of here," she says urgently. "It’s going to regroup and I’d rather that happen once we leave.”

 

She helps him stand up and props one of his arms over his shoulder. “You’ll be okay in a few minutes. And leave the med kit, I'll carry it.”

 

By the time they reach the library, Keith’s able to walk on his own. He’s not sure if it’s because he’s had time or if it’s just because of proximity. “How did you know what to do?” he asks finally.

 

Pidge side eyes him, “I’ve had practice.” she says cryptically. Keith remembers the card that Lance had given him just a few days ago, resting in his pocket—he had never gotten around to throwing it out.

 

It suddenly feels heavy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey!
> 
> So Lance is mentioned two (2!) times in this chapter, but too much of a good thing ... (what am I saying, I could manage a thousand Lances and I'd be the happiest person alive.) But anyway, this was required exposition and I had loads of fun writing it! 
> 
> But! Our blue boy is gonna be back and stupid around Keith in the next chapter, so don't worry about that. 
> 
> I've also written my take on Shiro and Keith's relationship into this fic as well. Personally, I see Shiro as that one constant in Keith's life, and there's a mutual amount of dependency on each other. They're basically my all time fave brotp, but I dunno if i'd ever be able to see them through shipper's goggles. idk, I like em platonic, but that's just me.
> 
> ALSO Pidge is the smartest kid in the world, and yes, she's old enough to drive here. Everyone's a bit older here I think, I'll put up the ages I'd written down for them once I find the sticky note I'd written it on. (I have stuff to say about Matt as well, but I'm trying to flesh him out some more)
> 
> I ALSO HAVE A SPOTIFY PLAYLIST FOR POTENTIAL SONGS IF Y'ALL WANT TO LISTEN TO IT.  
> it's ridiculously generic, but they all needed to have that spoop factor -> [Spotify Link](https://open.spotify.com/user/22syujjqyj7llt2cbfjnxvyai/playlist/5UiE4q6i7mogZBOfDLWJlD)
> 
> Leave a kudos itf you liked this or shoot me a comment! I appreciate everything! (and if you notice a typo or anything down that line, PLEASE TELL ME I'VE BEEN LOOKING AT THIS NON-STOP AND EVERYTHING'S BLURRING TOGETHER) [edit - [Silvamoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvamoon) beta'd this chapter as well! IT'S COMING ALONG WELL NOW WOOOHOOO
> 
> (chapter's title is from Rockwell's 'Somebody's Watching Me)
> 
> ((Editing on a phone is literally the dumbest I could have done. With the way I type, I don't deserve opposable thumbs—learn from my mistakes guys, I do stupid things all the time!))


	3. I Ain't Afraid of No Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith takes the plunge, Hunk and Lance nearly get skewered, Pidge is snarky 24/7 and Allura gets mad.
> 
> Shiro is safe... _for now._
> 
> (I did some [art](https://twitter.com/book_bass_art/status/1014583979410935810) for the fic, btw! It looks like a really bad goosebumps cover and I'm d y i n g)

**HUNK - Sunday, 1:13 pm, Galaxy Garrison: Club room 5A**

 

Hunk hunches over his workstation, PV pliers in one hand, and a bottle of sage extract in the other. He prods a loose wire poking out of the iron framed box in front of him. It sparks menacingly and fizzles out with a hiss. Two more identical boxes sit next to him; they’ve already been seen to.

 

“Right,” he says with a pleased smile. “it's time to light these bad boys up.”

 

“Careful, Hunk,” Allura says from her perch at the end of the table. She's not looking at him, but fussing over a textbook instead, and ever so often, her hand reaches up to push her glasses back up her nose or tuck an errant curl behind her ear. Nevertheless, Hunk assumes she's well aware of what's going around her, because the sparks flying out of his box are getting more frequent with every passing second. She shoots him an annoyed glance when one lands on her book and leaves a tiny, smoking hole right in the middle of her text, “Put the sage down and use both your hands, kid.” she grouses. “It's too bright for an encounter.”

 

“That may be the case, but it's a necessary precaution,” he says. “Although, if this works, then even the spray won’t be necessary.”

 

That catches her attention and Hunk smiles smugly to himself when she straightens up from her books to toss him an inquisitive look. “Did you make a containment unit?” she asks. “How does it work?”

 

“Kinda?” he says, “it's a glorified fish tank, really. But with the way I made it, Pidge can conduct her experiments on any sources we bring in without having to wait for backup.”

 

Allura stops and appraises the box with a look of approval on her face. “That's pretty useful Hunk." she hums. "Good work.”

 

Hunk preens under the praise. He taps a corner of the frame, drawing her attention to the glass that’s holding it together, “I used some plexi, which holds in some diluted sage extract and _this_ ,” he says as an explanation, and points to the iron lid at the top of the box and the tiny motor attached to it. “keeps it in constant motion. Like running water! It's a theory that Pidge and I want to test out, but it might just be a TV trope for all we know.”

 

He pulls out three smaller boxes from under his table. They’re wooden and shut tight with little gold padlocks. He methodically unlocks each one, his nose wrinkling at the strong smell of sage that wafts out from them.

 

“Also,” he says. “The club room’s finally going to stop smelling like one of us smoked up in here.” He pulls out a dog tag nestled in between the dried up sage leaves in the first box. “Ugh.”

 

“If I get my hands on some sea salt or lavender, I’ll bring ‘em in.” Allura says with a sympathetic smile.

 

She gets a grateful smile, and then Hunk diverts his attention to a hunched over glob dozing fitfully on two chairs that were lined up together across from his station.

 

“Hey, get up. I need your mojo.” he says to it.

 

His hand skims over a bunch of manuals, skipping past two finely bound engineering booklets and one crumbly old Helmline speeder flight leaflet. He finally picks up a crumpled up wad that had a grocery list hastily scribbled down on it from next to his notes and tosses it in a fine arc across the room. It lands on a sleeping Lance. The boy rolls off the chairs with a yelp and lands like a cat on his haunches; he gives Hunk a sleepy frown. “You only had to say so,” Lance mumbles, stretching languidly with a long yawn. He settles back against a table and shoots Hunk a thumbs down. “Jerk.”

 

"Just get over here." Hunk says with a grin.

 

He quickly divests the other two boxes of their items as well; a burnt photograph and a guitar pick. They get placed to the side, along with the dog tag, and all three are then carefully separated into the tanks Hunk just finished making.

 

Allura puts down her book and sits back to watch the proceedings with a keen eye.

 

Hunk gives Lance a thumbs up, “All right, do your thing.”

 

“Gimme a sec.” Hunk watches in amusement as Lance does a little hop in place and shakes his head to fully wake him up.

 

Lance stares at the tanks, “There’s sage in that.” he says. “What am I supposed to be looking out for if it’s going to block out the spirits?”

 

“Check for leaks.”

 

“ _Oookay_.” he says dubiously. “Casting out in three, two, one—”

 

Lance closes his eyes and goes still. The room’s silent, the only thing that makes any noise is a clock ticking half an hour fast on the wall. His eyes snap open a moment later, there’s a faint glow about him, “Yo, what the cheese.” he says, looking alarmed. He gives Allura a measured look, “You should probably get outta here,” he says urgently.

 

“What—”

 

“Hunk, use the spray!” he says as he tugs Allura out of the room, despite her protests—she nearly punts him over for the sudden scare—but he slams the doors shut in her face and bolts it.  

 

“Dude, _where_ did you get those sources from?” Lance asks, gasping. Behind him, a table starts to tremble. Allura’s yelling from behind the locked door, but for her sake, neither of them reply.

 

Hunk’s not taking this too well. “I got safe sources from the psychics’ bazaar.” he growls, guilt twisting in his gut. “And I know my tanks are fully functional!” He spritzes the air around them, thinking about the last three purchases he made, and Lance sighs, hunching over in relief, a hand tightly pressed over his heart.

 

“All right, that’s calmed it down. Just a smidge though. We need to figure out which source is acting up before it gets back. We gotta recheck all the sources.”

 

Hunk nods, still upset. “I’m sure I checked them properly the first time around.” he says, and gingerly lifts the lid of the first tank, holding the dog tag at point blank with his spray bottle. "All right, get ready..."

 

Lance barely spares the box a second glance, “Nope, military personnel; died honourably.” he blinks, touching it lightly and shuddering. “I think they took a hit for someone. This is definitely not our ghostie.”

 

They open up the box with the guitar pick. “You should do this one, it’ll work better with your senses.” Lance says encouragingly.

 

“It’s still bright in here, I dunno if my Listening will work.” says Hunk.

 

“It’s a pick, it's gonna have _music_ , it’s definitely going to work.”

 

Hunk makes a face, but gives in. They go silent once more and he stops and _listens._

 

He ignores everything. The ticking clock in the corner, Lance’s light breathing. His pounding heart.

 

A soft strain reaches his ears—the energetic strums of a guitar. Hunk recognises the song. “Bamboleo,” he says with a grin. He hears laughter and children shrieking happily in the background. Hunk pulls away from the sound and grounds himself back into the present. “Yeah, it’s not this one as well.”

 

They both turn to face the third tank with battle-ready stances. “You all set?” Lance asks. Hunk nods and lifts his bottle.

 

They pull open the lid and Hunk casts his senses out once more. Next to him, he feels Lance tense up and get ready to do the same.

 

But he hears nothing.

 

Lance opens his eyes and blinks. “Huh.” he says. “This is weird. I'm drawing a complete blank, this isn't even a functional source!”

 

“Are you sure the other two are safe?”

 

“Baby-proof.” Lance confirms.

 

“So if it’s not any of these…” Hunk starts.

 

A chair flies past them and crashes into the wall. The two shield themselves from the torrent of splinters that rain down against them.

 

“Oh, cheese.” says Lance.

 

Hunk looks hollow, he bellows, “ _Then what is it!?_ ”

 

They duck behind the table, chests heaving and mouths dry from panting hard before they slump against the drawers. “Do you have a rod on you?” Lance asks Hunk. A pencil pouch flies over head.

 

“Uh.”

 

“Oh my god, you left it behind again. You’re supposed to be the responsible one—”

 

“My tanks were supposed to work! And why exactly, don’t _you_ have _yours_ , huh? _”_

 

The door clicks open. “Allura!” Hunk bellows, worried about their president. “Don’t come back in or you’re toast!”

 

“They’ll cook you into a _boo-_ berry pie. Geddit, hah!”

 

Hunk forgets his panic to momentarily appreciate the pun, “Good one, Lance!” he says with a dopey grin.

 

He hears a light cough. It's soft, but strained enough to let you know that it's solely being used to get your attention and not to hack out a wad of phlegm. “Uh—it’s not Allura. She’s still mad, but she’s decided to stay outside.” says a raspy voice.

 

Somewhere, in the background, they hear can her hollering over the newcomer, “If that ghost doesn’t kill you, Lance, then god help me, _because I will!”_

 

Lance pales, and Hunk looks at him with a worried frown. “She doesn’t mean it, you know.”

 

He shakes his head. “Allura? No, I’m not worried about her, it’s—”

 

“Lance? Hunk? The card you gave me—it said you would be here.”

 

“—Keith.” he moans. “Oh god, he’s come back for me after the _thing_ on Thursday. That stupid _card_ ,  _argh_ —cremate me so I don’t come back.” he tries to push into the desk, folding himself over as far as he could, but alas, his lanky legs are of absolutely no help. “ _Heeeelp_.” he says in a panicked whisper. Hunk rolls his eyes, he’s more interested in the weird flush that takes over Lance’s terrified face.

 

“Dude, chill. Your face is the funniest thing in this room right now, but, I mean, we’re about to die so... _Anyway,_ not a lot to go on. And, you seriously need to make up your mind about Keith. Y’know, if you wanna fight or—”

 

“— _Flight!”_ Lance clamps a hand over Hunk’s filthy, _filthy_ mouth. He resists the urge to lick Lance’s hand,  “Do I need to run away from you as well, now?" he asks miserably. "Do all bad things happen in threes!"

 

Another voice speaks up. That snark voice, it’s... _Pidge_ ? What? Hunk perks up at that. She’d have a rod on her and then he can stop feeling so guilty. “Oi, get your butts over here. We might have a new client.” she says, and then in a lower voice. “And _something_ else.”

 

They peek over the table, ducking momentarily as another chair flies past. Pidge, Allura and Keith stand at the doorway, peeking in—Pidge looks bored. Keith’s understandably wide eyed.

 

“ _What the hell?”_ he says watching an eraser seemingly floy out of nowhere and smack Lance right between his eyebrows. "What's _going_ on?"

 

Pidge slides her rod across the floor, and Hunk grabs it. “Why is it that you two almost _die_ whenever I’m not around to watch over your shenanigans.”

 

He hears Keith mutter to Pidge, “Are you sure they can help?” he says. He sounds dubious and Hunk has to admit, it stings just a bit.

 

Apparently Lance has heard him as well, and his weird crush be damned, he springs up, ready for a fight. “We can help and do  _so_ much more.” he gripes, leaping over the table and stalking across the room all while dodging the other various paraphernalia whizzing past him. “You better watch it, mullet.”

 

From his vantage point he sees Keith tense up as well, but then his eyes widen and he’s suddenly making a running leap for Lance. Lance barely manages a distressed squawk before they crash into the floor in a tangle of limbs accompanied with muffled swearing and unholy screeching. A moment later, a hefty looking scissor slices through the air, just where Lance's head had been previously.

 

“What—” Lance splutters, looking furious and just as oblivious to the danger he had just been in. “the hell was that for?” He pushes against Keith, who’s plastered on top of him. This time Hunk really can’t make out if the ruddiness on Lance’s face was because he was flustered or because he wanted to punch a wall.

 

“Stay down,” Keith growls. He cranes his neck around to peek behind him. “Don’t move.” To Hunk he says. “Distract it with that stick of yours and we’ll come around from the back and join you.”

 

“Huh, distract what?” says Hunk.

 

Keith gestures wildly behind him, “That!” he says, pushing Lance against the wall and then following suit himself. “Can’t you see it? The mist?”

 

Hunk opens his mouth to fire off another barrage of questions but Pidge beats him to the punch, “Hunk, just listen to him, he's right.” she snaps. “And pivot another twenty degrees to your right.”

 

Hunk does as he’s told and with a few quick moves, he punctures the air around him The tightness in the air around him releases, the spirit retreating, and he lets out a huff. Not even a second later, Keith’s by his side with a disgruntled Lance in tow.

 

“Okay.” he says to Hunk. “Now what.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

**PIDGE - Sunday, 1:35 pm, Galaxy Garrison: Club room 5A**

 

Pidge smacks her head, and after she had vouched for Keith and all, ugh. Hunk looks like he almost considered doing the same had it not been for his rod. But she spies him taking a longer look at it, probably considering beating himself up with it and she smiles wryly at him.

 

She wants to move in and help her friends, but that’s a terrible idea at the moment, now that she's handed over her only weapon to Hunk, so she hangs back by the door.

 

“I thought you had a plan!” he cries.

 

Keith looks baffled by that statement. “You’re the expert, but I just couldn’t leave you alone so I came back. Also, move left.”

 

“Just find the source already,” Pidge says wearily.

 

Hunk turns his wild gaze on her, rod moving in the direction Keith had instructed him to follow. “There’s nothing here!” he says. “Lance and I can sense it but it’s none of the sources in this room.”

 

"What's a sourc-" Keith starts, but Lance shouts, and everyone turns to looks at him.

 

“Wait, I might be on to something.” Lance cuts in, squeezing his eyes shut. “Just keep doing whatever you’re doing, I think I can focus better if the ghost stays away away from me. And stay quiet.”

 

Hunk and Keith team up, and while they dash around the room with the rod, Lance treads carefully around the room.

 

“God, this thing’s angry,” he says, ducking to avoid a projectile and reaches back to the table and spreads his palms on the table, “But I found a cold spot!” he crows. “Just gimme a sec—” he runs his hands quickly over everything that's littering the table and finally pulls out the old flight manual Hunk had passed over earlier. “I got it!”

 

He dunks it into a tank, and everyone’s greeted with blissful silence.

 

A chair drops to the floor, abandoned.

 

Lance looks around cautiously, stalling for a few seconds. “I think that did it.” he says, looking pleased. He gives Hunk a sympathetic smile “We’ll have to incinerate that manual, bud.”

 

Allura and Pidge crowd into the room next to Hunk and Keith. Everyone studiously examines the leaflet in the tank. “I can get pictures of it before we do that, right?” Hunk asks forlornly. “I paid over a hundred for that, it’s a relic!”

 

Allura whacks his arm and ignores the painful hiss he lets out. “‘I checked everything,’ my _ass_.” she grumbles. She whirls on Lance, “And you!” she says.

 

Lance trembles. “Hey, I didn’t do anything,” he says, holding his hands up in surrender, “You can’t see or sense ghosts, sending you out was all I could do. Besides,” he grabs Keith and pushes him in front of him. “Shouldn’t you be more concerned about our _client_ and whatever he just did?!”

 

Keith scowls and shrugs out of his grasp. “After that performance, I think I can manage by myself.”

 

Pidge hushes him, and holds out a hand to press back against Lance before another fight started. “All right, children. _Drop_ _it_ ,” she says, “But, he’s right.” Pidge beckons to Keith, “Tell them what you can do.”

 

Keith fumbles awkwardly when he see that everyone’s attention is fixed on him, but then Lance rolls his eyes at him and he springs back to life.

 

Pidge hides a snicker behind her hand.

 

“Right, um.’ he says, carefully choosing his words. “I can see ghosts.”

 

Seconds tick by, a floorboard eases up and lets out a long creak. Crickets chirp outside the window.

 

“That’s it?” Lance says finally, his brows pull down to lie flat above his eyes. “Boy, you really don’t mince words.”

 

Keith glares at him.

 

“I mean, for how long could you see them? What do they look like? Have you interacted with one before?” he adds quickly, hands raised placatingly up at shoulder level as he takes a step back. "Please don't hit me."

 

“Oh,” Keith blinks and stops to mull over the questions. “Ever since I could remember,” he states, “I just didn’t know it at the time.” A pause and then, “They vary from glowing balls of gas to, well, looking like washed out humans; they're rarely transparent, and they stay silent—I tried to speak to one once as a kid, and that earned me a trip to a shrink after I got mad because it didn’t respond and no else could figure out what I was yelling for. I got used to ignoring them eventually and never told anyone about what I could see.” He looks down for a moment, eyes going dim.

 

Pidge’s gut tells her that there’s more to the story than Keith’s abbreviated and _very_ rushed version, but the boy remains tight lipped.

 

“Huh,” Hunk says, “That’s pretty neat. Uh, not counting the shrink and everything. But I can hear ‘em, and Lance can sense them psychically if he touches a source—and do more things, really—talk to them and what not. Pidge manages with a bit of everything.” At this Pidge gives him a thumbs up.

 

“I’m not convinced.” Lance says haughtily. “You’re pulling our legs.”

 

“Whywould I even think of doing that?” Keith counters, eyebrows nearly smashing into each other. " _You_ gave me the card!"

 

“Because!” Lance exclaims. “You just want to show us up, make us look crazy or whatever, and now you’ve got Pidge on your side!” He points at his eyes and then back to Keith’s and ignores Pidge’s irritated huff—he probably knows he's going off on a tangent, but it's a classic Lance move. “I’m onto you,” he says darkly. "I gave you the card for _another_ reason entirely. I didn't think you'd come up with some cock and bull story about your sixth sense."

 

Pidge is quite fed up at this point. The two work like pressure cookers, building up steam, blowing it off in one go and then rinse and repeat. _Good grief._

 

Keith predictably, turns red. “You are _so_ stupid. Why, you—” he looks around for something to help him, but nothing seems to come to mind. “I can prove it!” The second the words leave his mouth however, he looks like he wants to take them back. But his hesitation gets ignored.

 

“Oh yeah?” Lance quirks an eyebrow. He walks over to the third tank, giving the one with the pamphlet a wide berth, and pulls out the dog tags. He tosses it onto the counter, and the room turns a couple of degrees colder. “What do you sense?”

 

Looks like there's only one way to go with this, Keith stands up straight and faces Lance head on, “It’s gotten chilly,” he replies stiffly. "And the air feels heavy."

 

She nearly misses it, but Pidge sees Lance's eyebrows meet his hairline before he quickly stomps it down with a small sneer. She shakes her head in exasperation. “Pidge could have told you that, hell _,_ even a copy of the _NightWatch_ could have told you that.” he says. Keith stills for a moment, looking shifty as he does so. “No, try again. What do your _eyes_ tell you, since you're so hung up about them and all that.”

 

"Lance, really," Pidge starts, feeling a bit bad for Keith getting put on the spot. "there's no need to antagon-"

 

"It's okay, I got this." Keith says, shooting a cold glare at Lance.

 

He squints at the space between them, eyes widening in surprise. Pidge can already make out a vague form, but that’s about it.

 

“She’s a soldier. Gunshot to the heart,” he says slowly. “She’s cradling someone in her arms.”

 

Lance looks at him longer this time, the shock now fixed on his face, but Keith looks down at the floor, instead, his brows pulled together in distress. He moves to grab the tag but stops before his fingers touch it. “Put her back Lance," he says in a pained voice. "I don’t think she wanted to be brought out again.”

 

He looks contrite; he probably hadn't anticipated this reaction from Keith, “Right, I’m sorry. We’ll burn this one later, send her off proper," he says and gently places the tags back in the tank, the chill drops and the sticky miasma in the air clears up. “But sweet cheezus, _Keith_ ," Lance breathes, still solemn, but his eyes shine in amazement. "What you have there is a _gift_ . We haven't found many documented cases of detailed sightings in _years_."

 

Keith frowns, taken aback by Lance’s sudden enthusiasm. He suddenly looks like he wants to get _out._ "Well, I wish it came with a receipt so I can return it."

 

"Or you could join us," Lance says quickly, nearly tripping over himself in excitement. "Do you know what this would mean for the team? We'd be a complete set!"

 

“You just said that you didn’t believe me.”

 

“I take that back. You can do more than any of us, we could really do with you-”

 

“No.”

 

Lance’s face falls. “What?”

 

“ _No.”_ Keith says firmly, “I want nothing to do with ghosts—I'd just came here for a few answers and now I've got them,” He spares the tank with the dog-tag a last look and makes a move for the door. “This was a mistake,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry if I took up your time.”

 

It shuts behind him with a resounding click, and Allura elbows Lance in the gut. “You obviously did something to upset him. Go fix it.”

 

He returns her scowl with one of his own, “But I don’t know wha—”

 

“ _Go.”_

 

* * *

 

 

 

**LANCE - Sunday, 1:45 pm, Galaxy Garrison: Building 5, Corridor dA**

 

Muttering angrily to himself, Lance lets himself out the door and moves towards the direction he hears Keith’s retreating footsteps. And just what exactly was the guy's problem anyway? All he'd done was _compliment_ him and then the dude suddenly got his pants in a knot.

 

“Oi, Mullet. Hold up,” he calls out.

 

The footsteps move faster. Lance chases the sound down the empty hallway and up a flight of stairs.

 

“Keith, wait!” Lance tries again, his own pace quickening. The footsteps have practically started running and Lance puts his all into the pursuit, his long legs pumping as hard as he can go.

 

He catches sight of a tuft of dark hair turning the corner in front of him and yells, “Hold on for a second!” before he catches up and reaches out to grab his collar, Keith bumps against his chest but puts up an alarmingly aggressive fight.

 

“I said no already,” Keith growls as he struggles against Lance’s grip. “What more do you want?”

 

Lance lets go of Keith and they slump to the side, panting heavily. “Allura sent me,” he replies sullenly. “Told me to apologise, and she won't let me back in until I do. What is it with you and dramatic exits?”

 

To his surprise, Keith starts to laugh, did he have a mood switch somewhere on him or something? “Oh man, I did not expect to hear that come out of your mouth,” he says between chuckles. "You're whipped."

 

His laugh’s deep and rich and Lance focuses on the way his nose crinkles instead. _Ugly_ , he thinks.

 

_Nah, you fool, he looks like a bunny._

 

Shaking his head clear of his distracting thoughts, Lance frowns, “There's no arguing with Allura when she gets onto something, but, even if she did send me first, I speak for everyone when I say that I still think you should reconsider.”

 

The smile fades slowly, but Keith’s not upset anymore. “Lance, I have no intention of joining you guys, I have my reasons,” he says gently.

 

“But what about Shiro?”

 

Keith squints at him. “What do you know about that?”

 

Lance shrugs. “No details, but, Pidge did tell me that she was going over to his place yesterday, but then she turned up with _you_ today—so I have my suspicions that something must have happened to get you here. Besides, _I_ gave you our card, ergo, _I_ knew something spooky was up before you did.”

 

“Yeah, but how did you figure that out in the first place?” Keith asks him curiously. “I can’t imagine you catching on to anything quickly enough.”

 

Lance glares at him, “I’m going to ignore that.” he says primly, and Keith snickers into a gloved hand. “But I had a... _premonition_ of sorts. A bad omen.”

 

“Superstitious, much?” Keith asks.

 

“No, I mean I nearly fainted right after you left class that day. I looked at Shiro for a moment and it hit me. I went down like a limp noodle. Side effect of all of _this_." he gestures vaguely to his person.

 

“Hm.” Keith nods slowly—like he’s still confused. “That sounds harsh.”

 

“Nah, I was okay after a minute,” Lance says, and then he elaborates for Keiths benefit when his expression stays clouded, “Spirits imprint on their hosts if they’ve been around them for a while, and then some people—like me—can sense if someone’s living with one. It’s not harmful, just, er, some residual essence that leaves a vague echo of the spirit's intentions. That ghost has an agenda—and whatever it is, it chilled me to the _bone_.”

 

Keith pales, "Did I mention that his house was freezing?” he mutters.

 

Lance shakes his head, “That's just normal ghost stuff, it doesn’t matter if they’re benign or, yanno—murderous. They make cold spots wherever they go.”

 

Keith hums again, caught in some internal battle of his for a few moments before he stops to look Lance dead in the eye. He feels his cheeks go warm, because the glare trained on him right now is particularly ho—scary. _Scary_ . “Listen,” Keith says, leaning in close, “I’ll come back, but this is because I need to help Shiro out. I'll consult on his case, or something, and then I'm _gone._ I'm not joining your... _club_ or whatever it is. I—I can’t.”

 

Lance stops to consider Keith, “Yeah ok, just,” he gently pushes Keith away just a bit, worried for a second at the way the boy’s voice broke at the end. He decides not to prod him any further. “personal space, man. And I didn’t mean to send you over like that. I got excited for a moment there, because you have _no idea_ how often one of us gets ghost touched.”  

 

“Ghost touched?” Keith tilts his head

 

“Yeah, if a spirit comes into contact with you, you kinda,” Lance mimes flopping down onto the floor. “get hurt. But, if we could see it, then we could _dodge_ it, and then we don’t get hurt. Simple.”

 

Keith looks guilty for a second and Lance quickly reassures him that it’s all good in the hood. “Don’t worry about it, Hunk’s working on an EMF so we’ll have a visual up and running soon.”

 

“Do they leave a mark?” Keith asks suddenly.

 

Lance hums, “The spirits? Yeah, sometimes, but they fade after a while. Why?”

 

His eyes go wide and he takes a step back when Keith tucks a thick strand of hair that had been obscuring the right side of his face, a long, thin, purple scar runs from his cheekbone all the way down his neck. “Shit, you got hit.”

 

Keith chuckles, “It was rough.” is all he says.

 

Lance backtracks for a moment. “Wait, this happened at Shiro’s?”

 

A nod confirms that it was so, and Lance is hit with a strong sense of panic. “Dude, if that thing touched you of its own volition then it’s definitely malignant. You _have_ to get Shiro outta there, stat. It's out for blood.” He grabs his arm and frog marches him back to their club-room, “C’mon, we gotta let the others know.”

 

“But—”

 

“That mark’s pretty bad, like I’ve only seen scratches or patches of light discolouring from a blanket hit, nothing like yours—the only reason I know it’s from a ghostie is because it’s purple.” he stops to grin at Keith. “Pidge ran head first into one of them once, it wasn’t pretty. Luckily, it was a really weak one. I think she used lavender on he marks, it helps with those.”

 

“Shiro—”

 

“Is lucky to have survived all those days, I don’t know how he didn’t get hurt already. That’s a sign, I tell you.”

 

Keith finally manages to wrangle his arms out of Lance’s grasp, but they’re already back at the room. “About that. You don’t have to worry about Shiro. He's safe...for now—he had a spot of trouble but he's fine and resting up at the Holt’s place right now.”

 

Lance stops. “Eh? When were you gonna tell us about this”

 

“If you would have stopped for a moment,” Keith says with an annoyed look, “Shiro got hurt yesterday when we went over to visit him; a couple of bookshelves came down on top of him while we were there, but we got him to the hospital and then took him over to Pidge’s. She said there was something fishy going on when I was leaving to get a med kit for him and on my way back I ran into the, er, _thing._ ”

 

“Oh. _Shit_.”

 

“Yeah, but I think he can stay with them ‘till we sort this out? So we’re clear.”

 

Lance opens the door to the club room, the others are all huddled around the biggest table in the room with Pidge in the centre. She waves them over when she sees them come in.

 

“I was getting Hunk and Allura all caught up on the situation,” she says.

 

“How’d you know I’d even come back?” Keith asks.

 

Hunks smiles, “Lance can be…persuasive when he wants.”

 

“You mean he’s a pain in the ass until you give up and go along with him,” Pidge says with a snort.

 

Lance nods along to Hunk’s words. “Yup, yup—wait. Pidge, _hey!”_

 

“Anyway, Pidge was just about to tell us about a formal complaint, you guys spoke to the cops?” Hunk says quickly over her snorts. Keith nods back, "I've told LAnce around that much as well." he replies.

 

“Yeah, take it away, Keith,” Pidge says, handing over the stage to him.

 

“All right, er, we called in the APD this morning, and they sent in two officers to pick up the case, a Haxus and Thace?”

 

“Actually, I _told_ Mattnot to get them involved, but he went ahead anyway,” Pidge adds.

 

Hunk groans, “Oh man, now we’re gonna have to wait for all that red tape to get pulled off.”

 

Keith grunts, “They’ve also put up a one man patrol around his place. Shiro gave them some more recent tapes from the cameras around his house and they caught someone sneaking in a few weeks ago.”

 

“Wait,” Allura interjects, “They actually caught someone sneaking in? But it was a spirit that got Shiro, right?”

 

“I mean, _we_ believe his accident was caused by the spirit creeping around his place, but we didn't actually see it near _him_. We didn’t tell the cops what we saw—Matt doesn’t have a clue, because we couldn’t get a chance to tell him without bothering Shiro,” Pidge says looking at Keith, “but who’s to say whoever snuck in isn’t tied to the ghosts somehow?”

 

“Did you get the tapes back?” Lance asks.

 

Keith shakes his head. “They said they needed it for evidence.”

 

Pidge frowns and picks at a thread sticking out at the bottom of her shirt. “Thace was ready to give it back, but Haxus stopped him,” she says. She scrubs a hand across her face, tutting softly, “He was kinda weird.”

 

“Weird?” Lance intones. "How?"

 

“Yeah, shifty-like, I think there's more to those tapes but _they_ aren't going to tell us anytime soon for some reason. And he was really rude, but whatever, some people are just like that.”

 

“We have a problem, though,” Keith says, “Shiro’s not going to believe us when we tell him what’s going on with the Manor.”

 

“—Why—”

 

“— _You never said anything about a Manor!”_

 

Keith looks at Lance with tired eyes, “Two stories with an attic and a basement. Eight rooms. Two kitchens. Oh, and a library.”

 

“ _Holy crow._ Hunk, buddy. Think of all that hot pot space, yum.”

 

“And Shiro’s the most unimaginative person I’ve ever met. He named literally all of his video game personas after himself,” Keith continues, ignoring Lance's mini freak out. 

 

“Is this going to be a _big_ problem, though?” Allura questions. “Matt and I can talk to him.”

 

“I don’t know how he’s going to react to this,” Keith says wearily. “But I’ll try and talk to him first, don’t worry.”

 

“How badly did Shiro get hurt?” Hunk asks.

 

“The shelf sliced through his calf, the muscle’s going to need a while to heal up,” Keith says, and backs away when Hunk’s face turns green. “Are you...okay?”

 

Lance thumps his friend on the back, “Hunk just doesn't like thinking about blood and all that other nasty stuff, he’ll be fine. Where did this happen?” he adds.

 

“I didn’t even mention blood,” Keith mutters, shaking his head. He looks to the side and tried to recount the events that had transpired last night. “Ground floor of the library. Wait a minute—” Keith stops to tell them his story with the bathwater footprints on the second floor, and Pidge chimes in when he recounts the library’s maze.

 

“—We walked for ages but the maze actually only takes a couple of minutes to get through.” Pidge finishes.

 

“And there was definitely something following me before I bumped into you,” Keith said.

 

Allura and Hunk end up transcribing some of the events into a notebook, “Time dilation, Stalkers, disappearing evidence, _falling bookshelves_. You guys have a lot on your plate with this one,” Allura says at the end.

 

“It sounds like a Type two poltergeist,” Lance says. “But...it sounds like it had a body?”

 

“Could have been two ghosts in there.” Pidge reminds him. “It’s a big house.”

 

Lance lets out a low whistle, “Yikes.” he says, but then he cheers up quickly, “Anyway, we’ll finish our other cases in the meantime. It’ll take a few days to get rid of the cop. That should also give us some time to prepare for D-day,” he says and claps Keith hard on the shoulder. He buckles over with a grunt and a muffled curse.

 

He lets himself uncharacteristically soft with Keith for once, “We’ll get Shiro’s place spook free in no time,” he says, with an encouraging grin. "don’t you worry."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a few paragraphs shorter than what I'd usually post, but this was a fast paced chapter. 
> 
> Leave a kudos or a comment if y'all liked it (or if you have some good ass concrit!) And come yell about VLD with me on[Twitter!](https://twitter.com/book_bass_art)
> 
> Here's the [link](https://open.spotify.com/user/22syujjqyj7llt2cbfjnxvyai/playlist/5UiE4q6i7mogZBOfDLWJlD) to the spotify playlist I have running for this fic.
> 
> (Chapter title is from Ray Parker, Jr.'s 'Ghostbusters' bec what ghost busting fic is complete without a nod to the OGs)


	4. If You Don't Believe, You Better Get Superstitious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith seeks answers. Pidge draws strange things. Hunk is confused.

**KEITH - Monday, 5:20 pm, Galaxy Garrison: Club room 5A**

“Do you two ever leave this room?”

 

Keith leans against the frame of the door to the room and gives Hunk and Pidge a small smirk when they shriek in unison, the mirth dancing in his eyes, that is, until a nozzle of a sage spray bottle is stuck in his face and he gets _spritzed._

 

“Hey! Cut it out!” he yells, arms waving wildly in front of him to fend of his attacker. The spritizing stops and he frowns at an apologetic Hunk from underneath his soaked hair. His collar sticks to his neck and it’s ridiculously uncomfortable.

 

“Sorry!” Hunk blusters, “You startled us.” he points at a small pile of screws on the table, “We have potential ghost sources in the room, and considering that these are linked to the thing that got to Shiro, I’m _kinda_ on edge.”

 

Pidge motions for him to come closer, “I don't know if you remember these, but they’re the screws I found after the shelves went down on Shiro.”

 

Keith nods mutely, looking at the bolts in question, “Yeah, I remember. Er, what are you two doing with them?”

 

Pidge pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and squints at the pile of metal in front of her. “I’m…not sure, really. We need to figure out what Type the ghost is before we go in guns ablazing and all that or _else…_ ”

 

“Type? Sources?” Keith tilts his head to the side, feeling lost. He needed to get on top of this ghost-lingo business like, yesterday. “Listen, how about you give me a quick run-down about this ghost busting side job of yours?”

 

Pidge straightens up and regards Keith with a gleam in her eye. “How about you tell us what _you’re_ doing _here_ first, hmm?”

 

He steps back, shoulders raised up to his ears—suddenly feeling defensive at the tone Pidge had taken on. “I just came in to get everyone up to date with Shiro’s situation.” he says.

 

That’s a lie. Obviously. He had nothing to do and his curiosity got the better of him. Keith’s been itching to find out more about Pidge’s club and her friends. But he didn’t even let himself believe that. Delivering a status report had seemed like the smartest idea to slink in and gather up some intel at that moment. _Clearly_ it wasn’t.

 

“Do you not have your phone on you?” she asks and pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. They glint dangerously at him.

 

Oh god, no. Leave it to Pidge to figure out that he wasn’t playing it straight from the beginning. “I was just passing by and thought I’d drop in,” he tries to cover up.

 

Pidge shoots him an unimpressed look, “ _Sure_.”

 

“His appointment with Hedrick’s got pushed back to two weeks from now.”

 

“Right.”

 

“ _I_ think Keith’s curious,” Hunk says coyly. Keith starts to shake his head in protest, but Hunk points at the card he’s been gripping in his hand since he walked in. It’s crushed into a little ball. “About our para-sleuthing. We can tell you whatever you need, dude.”

 

Keith puts whatever energy he has into the scathing glare he sends Hunk, but all he gets in return in another sunny, impish grin. “I’m not interested, Hunk.”

 

“Also, you know that he’s literally _staying at my place,_ right?” Pidge says, “I found out about all of this, like, years ago, and by extension, so did Hunk and Lance. You don’t need an excuse to hang around here, Keith,” she adds patiently, her gaze softening. “Just come.”

 

Keith looks back at Pidge and then at Hunk with weary eyes.

 

Yeah, maybe he had been curious, because _maybe_ he had finally found people who actually believed him when he told them that he could see _dead_ _people_ , with their stiff postures and glassy stares, instead of trying to ship him off to the nearest shrink. That he could see a person’s last moments, watch the life snuff out of their eyes over and over and _over_ again and not run away terrified but instead work with him to perhaps stop the chaos.

 

He touches the scarf around his neck, blood red but burnt brown around the edges—smoke damaged. It’s always somewhere on his person. He might be able to get some answers with some help from this rag-tag bunch...

 

But right now, his caution still runs rampant. Obviously, he believed they could interact with the dead as well, but something, deep down in him made it all so ridiculously hard to let down his guard. If it had been just Pidge or Matt, maybe even Allura—it would have been so much more easier to deal with. To just _talk_ to them.

 

It’s been so long.

 

It’s _neve_ _r_ been, actually.

 

“You okay, Keith?” Hunk asks, looking a little fidgety, he shoves an elbow into Pidge’s side and winces in apology when she nearly gets knocked off her feet. “I hope we didn’t cross a line, like, you can do whatever you want, man. Don’t take us too seriously.”

 

Keith’s reckons he was caught frowning again, so he tries to smoothen out the crease in his brow and gives Hunk a small, grateful smile. So, he’s a little off kelter sometimes, but Hunk is nice. Keith feels he could come to trust him. Eventually, maybe.

 

“It’s fine.” he says. “You might have been right, _perhaps_.”

 

“Well, you’re welcome here anytime,” Pidge re-affirms him. “Anyhoo, I guess we could go over our glossary with you or something. Can’t have you zoning out once we start prepping.” She beckons to Keith to come over to their table, putting the screws in a tank and pulling out a rod and a spray bottle from a drawer at the side. A small notebook follows soon after. “Right, so, what do you want to start with?”

 

The change in topic is very much welcome and Keith stops to consider his options. He eventually shrugs, deciding that there’s too much he’s curious about and says, “...er, surprise me?”

 

Pidge rolls her eyes, but she starts ticking off a list on her fingers. “Okay, so Sources are a thing. Types as well.”

 

“Probably ought to tell him about instigators and suppressants.” Hunk weighs in.

 

Pidge hums, “Yeah, we gotta get into sensory attributes and ghost touches as well.”

 

Keith waves a hand in the air, “Wait, I know about those. Lance already filled me in on that.” he looks around him, suddenly realising that something's amiss. “Speaking of which, where’d he go?” he asks. It hits him then. That’s why the clubroom’s suddenly so _quiet._

 

Hunk snorts, “Burger run with Allura.” he says, “He’s gonna be super offended if I tell him it took you this long to remember him.”

 

“What do you mean?” Keith says, confused.

 

‘Nothing, nothing. Carry on,” Hunk says with a nod and a small smile.

 

“...ah, all right?”

 

Pidge clears her throat, catching the boys’ attention. “Do you know what makes a ghost?” she says grimly.

 

Keith shakes his head, “Nah.” he says. Simple. Succinct. He knows nothing.

 

She leans in over her desk. Waits until Keith's drawn in closer out of curiosity. She's setting the mood.

 

“ _Motive,_ ” she whispers ominously. “Unfinished business." her finger moves in lazy circles in the air. "They work on a loop, if it was a murder, they wish for justice…or retribution in some cases. If it’s an inheritance issue, they wait around until it’s resolved. Some are tied to possessions which have to be dealt with to ease their spirits—so, unless you complete the circle and bring them peace or _destroy_ their source, a ghost won’t leave.”

 

Keith fingers his scarf once more. “Possessions? That’s a bit shallow, isn’t it? You literally came back from the dead for a crummy, old _thing.”_

 

“It’s not that exactly.” Hunk says. “Honestly, we’re not too sure about these, but they’re always required for _something_ else. Burying them kinda gets rid of them temporarily, but they come back, because they had unfinished business and their possessions were instrumental to finishing off an important task.”

 

“I’d actually put the possessions under sources,” Pidge amends. She looks at Keith, “A source could even be the ghost’s physical body—before they died, but like Hunk said, we don’t have much to back this up, because most of the ghosts we’ve tackled were bound by possessions.”

 

“So a ghost’s, er, _soul,_ I guess is tied to its source. It’s their gateway to the living world and their container,” Hunk adds. “They even set the limit for a ghost’s reach.”

 

Keith blanches when he realises the implication of everything that's he's just been told, “Does this mean that you’ve had to burn bodies before?”

 

Hunk looks mortified. “God no,” he says, shaking his head quickly. “It definitely one of the more _effective_ methods of getting rid of a ghost’s source—anything with fire is good for us, but Lance found another way. Iron nets.”

 

“I’m assuming that’s a…suppressant?” Keith says, taking a lucky shot in the dark.

 

Hunk beams at him, “Yeah! You catch on really fast. _Nice_.”

 

“They neutralise a ghost’s essence instead of terminating the soul link.” Pidge says, “Frankly speaking, I’m in favour of burning the bodies, they’re dead anyway, plus it’s _crazy_ effective, but it raises too many questions and Hunk and Lance would just throw a hissy fit anyway.”

 

“If you take a net off, you get your ghost back.” Hunk adds as a footnote.

 

Keith nods at the spray bottle on the table. “Is that another suppressant? I saw Hunk with it the day that ghost attacked. The room smelled god-awful after that, however.”

 

“It’s sage extract,” Pidge explains, “but, yeah. Iron, sage and even sea-salt works against ghosts.”

 

“ _Buuut,”_ says Hunk, drawing out the word. “We don’t know why.”

 

“I’m pretty sure that sage would even put off the living, if you catch my drift,” Keith says flatly.

 

“It’s the cheapest,” Hunk shrugs. “But the sea-salt can be turned into a really powerful spray. I mean, we’d use it if it wasn’t nearly ten dollars for an _ounce._ ”

 

“I know we said that iron is useful but,” says Pidge, eyeing the sheath sticking out of the pack on Keith’s belt. “-your knife. It cut right through that spectre’s form. That was _incredibly_ effective. I’ve never felt the miasma lift so quickly.”

 

“But mine was made out of a silver alloy—Luxite or something, I’m not too sure.”

 

Pidge lights up and starts to scribble something into her notebook. “That’s it!” she crows. “Purer metals have a greater chance of neutralising a ghost!”

 

"I mean it’s useless if you can’t actually buy more product to test out that theory now,” says Keith drily.

 

Pidge ignores him and continues to write all over the page in her untidy scrawl, tongue peeking out at the corner of her lips. Keith’s not sure what she’s doing, but the bottom half of the page is filled with a poorly drawn picture of a leprechaun and a pot of gold.

 

He shakes his head and then focuses all his attention on Hunk.

 

“So are there things that make ghosts stronger?” he asks.

 

“Yeah, here’s a pro tip: never, _ever,_ wear red to a haunting.”

 

Keith looks down at his current ensemble in horror. “But that’s all I wear-”

 

Hunk snorts and Keith feels his ears go hot. “Oh, you were messing with me,” he says in a flat tone.

 

“But for real, though. They get stronger in the night, but it also makes it easier to sense them. And their electromagnetic compositions totally wreck any and all electrical appliances in the area.”

 

“Yeah, so we recommend hunting at night, but do it with candles. And you know, try not to die,” Pidge jokes, still focused on her tiny green man.

 

“Hang on a tick,” Keith says, brows furrowed. “Weren’t you trying to make an EMF or something?”

 

Pidge gives her leprechaun a few finishing touches (re: a tutu and a gap between its two front teeth) and side-eyes Keith, “Yeah, what of it?” she says.

 

“Doesn’t that run on batteries?”

 

She exchanges a look with Hunk, he holds her gaze for a long couple of seconds before sighing and hanging his head. Pidge looks triumphant. “They… don’t… actually.” Hunk says slowly.

 

“But that day, with Lance. Your battery-”

 

“Yeah, that was just a cover up. Lance just wanted to spy on you lot,” Pidge smirks.

 

Keith feels his pressure go up once more, “That _fuc-”_

 

“ _We use moon cores to power up our systems!”_ Hunk all but yells.

 

“What.”

 

“Uh, nothing? Don’t mind me,” Hunk titters.

 

“I can deal with Lance later, but, _moon_ cores? _Where the hell do you get moon cores from?_ No, don’t you back away from me, Hunk—I heard you! _”_

 

Pidge’s shit-eating grin gets wider when she says, “Hunk here, finally decided that his quest for the truth was greater than his academic pursuits when we realised that a spectres EM reading matched up with a sample from the lab. It was his most out of character moment that I’ve ever witnessed, but it was _glorious_.”

 

Keith’s brain is whirling from the pace of this conversation, it keeps going from zero to a hundred in a matter of seconds, but oddly enough, he’s enjoying it.

 

“What did he do?” he asks.

 

“Snuck into the resource lab along with our fearless _leader_ and nabbed a couple of grams of the good kush,” says Pidge. “ _After_ shoving Iverson into a supplies closet. Naturally, I helped with navigation. Overwrote the security systems and all that.”

 

Keith looks at the two of them with a faint grin. “Naturally,” he says wryly, and then, “Was this in our second year? Right after break? That was when Iverson installed all those external locks on the closets.”

 

“Yeah, you kinda need a staff member to get into one now.”

 

His grin brightens. With the tenacity these two possesed, Keith could feel it in his bones that he was making the right decision.

 

Now all he had to do was figure out Lance.

* * *

 

 

** HUNK - Monday, 5:45 pm, Galaxy Garrison: Club room 5A **

 

Pidge had correctly predicted that Keith was due for an unprecedented visit to their clubroom any day now. Hunk would have been amazed at her accuracy, but he’s aware that the two had been friends for ages. They were close; she _knew_ him.

 

 _“The guy’s a little, er, apprehensive about everything. Especially now that you consider that he’s doing most of this for Shiro,” she had said to Hunk moments before the_ _door opened and in walked Keith himself._

 

All of that was true, however, there was something else about Keith that was niggling at him. He had another piece to the puzzle up his sleeve. Another secret.

 

No matter though. Keith would come to them once he feels like it.

 

Keith’s been all right so far. He’s curious, despite his attempts to convince everyone otherwise—he probably wants to maintain his surly rep.

 

He approaches Hunk nervously. “Could you tell me about the Types?” he asks him in a quiet voice a few minutes after their initial wreck of a conversation. Pidge had wandered off to the lockers, muttering to herself about ingots and iron filings

 

Dang, Lance was going to kill him for giving him away, but Keith didn’t look all that angry. Hopefully he’d let it go.

 

Hunk gives Keith a nod, “Yeah,” he says. “We have a makeshift classification system for the types of ghosts we’ve encountered so far.” He holds up three fingers, folding one down with each category. “Type One’s are harmless, usually just remnants of a soul. So with me, I can hear their last words over and over again. Lance usually gets a vision of their last actions and stuff like that. They don’t do much. I mean obviously you don’t want direct contact with ‘em, but they just putter around the place and nothing else, their EM levels are super weak.”

 

“Type Two appariations are trickier. They have a sort of consciousness, and a pretty solid purpose, unlike the Type one’s, which are generally held back for really mild reasons. Plus they come in multiple forms.”

 

“So like a poltergeist?”

 

“Exactly. They’re more clever than Type Ones, so anything goes with these. And these guys don’t hang back. They go for the throat.”

 

“Sounds scary.”

 

“Yeah, Lance has nearly _died_ a couple of times,” Hunk says incredulously, a dark look stealing cross his face.

 

Keith hums, “That’s funny, he gave me the impression that it was you two who went bumbling around the place. I didn’t believe him completely,” he adds hastily when Hunk quirks an eyebrow at him.

 

Ah, good old posturing. Hunk shakes his head at Lance’s blatant attempt to put on an act for his ‘ _rival_ .’ He chuckles good-naturedly at Keith instead. “Pidge and I have gotten ghost touched maybe, I dunno, three times between us? But Lance? _Man_ , we’ve lost count.”

 

Keith snorts, “Yeah, he’s _something_ , all right.” his face turns contemplative after that. “To be honest, I’ve never understood Lance. He’s, uh,” Keith gestures helplessly in a haphazard circle around him. “All over the place.”

 

Hunk quirks an eyebrow at that. His friend was usually so tight lipped about Keith for whatever twisted reason of his. There was his outright antagonism. Well, it was not  _harmful_ per say, Keith didn’t seem to react as much as Lance seemed to have liked. But, his ribbing could go overboard and, in the long run, was completely unnecessary—and while he was a ridiculous show off and completely and utterly goofy at times, Keith was usually the only person he pulled out all the stops on.

 

Hunk has an idea—a motive for Lance’s actions. But this had been going on for _ages._ Perhaps getting a second perspective would keep his nosy brain out of his friend’s business (is what he told himself).

 

“What do you mean?” he asks Keith, playing it cool.

 

“Well, it’s just that ever since I met him in our second year, all he’s done is oscillate between being tolerable or being a total jackass to me,” Keith says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Have I _done_ something to him?” he asks petulantly, looking a little hurt.

 

Hunk shakes his head, “No, not that I can think of. Although, you _do_ beat him at the sims ever so often and it drives him insane. I doubt it’s that, however. He’s just stupidly competitive.”

 

Keith smirks at that. “Ah, I know about that one,” he says mischievously. “That one’s probably not _all_ on him.”

 

Hunk’s really starting to like this dude, although, he doubt this was going to help Keith deal with Lance.

 

But wait a second. There’s something else.

 

“When did you say you first met him?”

 

Keith hums in askance, “Oh, uh. Somewhere in middle of our second year?”

 

What. That didn’t add up.

 

Hunk’s known about Keith ever since their first year at the Garrison. Lance wouldn’t stop yammering on and on and _on_ about the cadet with the wicked stick shift skills, who was also _the_ Takashi Shirogane’s one and only ward. The kid that made it to level five on the Transmute Simulator in under fifteen minutes. He’d been star struck initially, Hunk still remembers Lance whirling into their dorm room every week in a frenzied state to yell at him about Keith holding on to the top spot on the simulator scoreboard.

 

“ _This guy’s brilliant!” he had said. “I_ have _to catch up to him_ — _Keith’s going places, I tell you.”_

 

He would have definitely spoken to Keith before their second year.

 

But Hunk ponders over Lance’s behaviour _now._ Come to think about it, he stopped talking about Keith right around… _their second year_. The antagonism had come out of nowhere, like a shot in the dark.

 

Yikes, what had happened?

 

“Are you sure you’ve never spoken to Lance before?” he prods.

 

Keith shakes his head in full confidence. “Nope,” he says, “He’s loud. I would have definitely remembered him if I’d seen him earlier.”

 

Welp. That’s that.

 

“What’s up?” Keith suddenly asks, waving a hand in front of his face. “You look like you sucked a lemon or something.”

 

“No, no. It’s all good. I just got distracted for a second,” Hunk says, easing into an easy smile. He’ll tackle this head on some other time. Just not now. “Is there anything else that you want to know about?”

 

Keith frowns and taps the side of his face. It’s the side with the angry purple welt running down from the tip of his cheek bone and disappearing down his collar. “Yeah, what exactly happens to you when you get ghost-touched?” he asks. “I—” his voice cracks slightly, “I couldn’t breathe. The ground started spinning, and by god, I wanted to sleep for a year after the whole thing was over.”

 

Hunk gives his arm a gentle squeeze. “That was their energy transference. They’re dead, but you _aren’t,_ so they absorb your vital energy. It makes them stronger and quicker when they drain so we usually carry sugar loaded snacks or something like Gatorade with us to recharge in case we get nicked.”

 

“Does that— _can they_ —drain you completely?”

 

“I’m pretty sure it’s what they want,i could dig up an old case to confirm if you want.”

 

“Hypothetically speaking, can they come back to life if they actually did drain someone of all their, uh, essence?”

 

Hunk pauses. This was something he hadn’t considered before. “I mean, you’d need a body, wouldn’t you?” he says after deliberating the question.

 

That seems to settle Keith. The nervous energy he’d been exuding seemed to have simmered down, and Hunk was puzzled yet again--Keith seemed almost _sad_ . “Is everything all right? You’re kinda on edge,” he says, and regrets it immediately when he sees Keith almost _physically_ close off. He reaches for that ratty scarf around his neck once more.

 

“Yeah,” he replies stiffly and moves out of his seat. “Like I said, I wanted to know if you lot were the real deal. I’m not leaving Shiro in the hands of amateurs.”

 

“Leave it to us, we know what we’re doing. No one else is going to believe you anyway,” Hunk says firmly, ignoring the jibe. “Sit down, I have a question for you, now. What does your ghost look like? Tall, short? Was it a man or a woman? The sooner we figure out as much as we can about this, the better.”

 

Keith sticks his chin out stubbornly. He doesn’t sit down, but he aquices. “None of that,” he says. “I couldn’t figure out what it was. It had long hair and nails.” he shudders and continues, “And these hollow, black eyes that made you want to hurl when you looked straight at it.” His voice drops and he speaks with a dark tone, “It didn’t have a mouth but at the same time, I felt like I was going deaf. That’s some weird correlation.”

 

“Right, definitely a Type Two changeling. We can’t let Shiro back in there, or that might be the last time we ever see him,” Hunk says solemnly. “I’m still amazed that we have a physical reference for this case. You’re truly remarkable.”

 

“What, you haven’t come across someone who can see them?” Keith asks bitterly.

 

“As a matter of fact, no, I haven’t. Not to the extent that you can. I’ve met other Listeners, and I’ve heard of another kid who can do something similar to Lance. You’re a first.”

 

Keith sighs and reaches for the pack at his waist. “I also have… this .” he says, and pulls out a crumpled up wad of paper from within its depths.

 

Hunk looks at the offering with a raised brow. He takes it from Keith and unravels it. “What—oh _god_ , what the hell is that.”

 

It looks exactly like the ghost Keith had described. He’s rendered it beautifully, like it’s about to pop off the page and drag its claws through your neck. Hunk suppresses a shudder.

 

“It’s pretty good,” he says lamely. “But I guess I’m good just hearing them.”

 

Keith cracks a small smile. “Keep that,” he says. "Now you have an eyewitness report."

 

 

 

 

Pidge finally gets back to them, her arms laden with scraps of metal from god knows where, and Hunk shows her the drawing Keith had given him. Her eyes go as wide as saucers. “Holy _shit_ ,” she says. “Was _this_ is the thing we saw? Thank Sagan they all look like cotton fluff to me.”

 

Keith rolls his eyes at her, “Let’s not forget it’s also because you have centimeter thick lenses.”

 

"Just you wait, I’ll get my lasik done soon and then it’s over for you bitches.”

 

Keith stretches and gets up to make his way to the door, “I have homework to get rid off,” he says. “I should get going.”

 

“Don’t be a stranger.” says Hunk.

 

Keith doesn't reply, just cocks his head to the side half-heartedly. Like that meant something.

 

“Wait, Keith,” Pidge calls out, just before he reaches the door. He stops to regard her with a puzzled stare. “We’re testing out the EMF in a few days. You should come.”

 

His brows slant down and his lips curl in response. “I’m only doing Shiro’s case.”

 

Hunk can sense an impending storm, but Pidge just barrels on, uncaring of the sour look on Keith’s face. “What’s your deal anyway?" she says, prodding at him. "I thought you’d be somewhat interested in tagging along. Especially since you have all those mag-”

 

“ _Don’t you dare finish that sentence, you runt.”_

 

Pidge give him an imperious look. “I’m two years younger than you, and twice as smart. Not a _runt_ ,” she says primly, drawing out the last word with as much disdain possible, and Hunk has to stuff his face full of knuckle to stop the bubbling chortle that threatens to come out at the scandalised look on Keith’s face.

 

“Are you sure you’re not interested?” she asks once again.

 

This time Keith hesitates a little longer before giving her a surly, “ _No”_ but apparently it means nothing to Pidge because she scribbles down in her leather notebook once more and tears out the page. “42H, Lilith Avenue, Hollinsdale. I'll text you closer to the date. Be there or be square.”

 

Keith scowls at her but he takes the paper anyway, because no matter what he does, Pidge is eventually going to somehow find a way to slip it onto his person before he leaves the room. He makes for the door once again, but this time Hunk decides to speak up.

 

“Wait, I have something as well.”

 

“Do you harass all of your clients like this or am I just special?” Keith asks drily.

 

“Just you,” Hunk says sweetly. “But this is important.”

 

“What is?”

 

He takes a deep breath, “It’s about what we discussed earlier.” he says.

 

Pidge looks at the two of them expectantly, waiting on answers. She gets none.

 

“Well?”

 

“Lance,” says Hunk. “Is like an onion.”

 

The room goes silent. Pidge blinks once, twice. She shakes her head from side to side like a dog. _What?_ she mouths.

 

Keith doesn’t miss a beat, “So he smells?”

 

“What? No, that’s not what I-”

 

“He makes people cry?”

 

“Goddamit, Keith. I’m trying to make a point-”

 

“If you leave him out in the sun he turns all dry and pruny?”

 

“ _Layers._ You imbecile,” Hunk all but roars over Pidge’s rambunctious laughter. “Lance. Has. _Layers!_ Just give him a chance, I don’t know what his deal is, but I think you two could get along for once, if you both stopped to cut the crap.”

 

“It’s him who needs to step up. Not me,” Keith says petulantly. “He started it.”

 

"But you’ve also admitted to purposely riling him up," Hunk says evenly. "This is a two way street, dude.”

 

Keith snorts. “Yeah, I’ll think about it.” he says, this time opening the door for real. “No promises.” The door shuts behind him with a resounding click.

 

Pidge tuts at Hunk. “I left you two alone for five minutes,” she says. “ _Five.”_

* * *

 

 

**HUNK - Monday, 7:30 pm, Galaxy Garrison: Club room 5A**

 

He's packing up his tools, chattering away happily with Allura, Pidge and Lance when it suddenly hits him.

 

He'd never gotten to Type Threes with Keith.

 

Hunk frowns, fiddling half-heartedly with the screwdriver in his hands. It's not like it really mattered, did it? Type Threes were practically myths. Hell, he only had the vaguest idea of what one did from the videos Coran and Alfor had left behind in their tapes, but those were corroded through and through, so a lot of it just made no sense.

 

He shrugs and put his screwdriver away. He'll tell Keith about them later.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes, I've been late with the posting, I'm super sorry, but I'm actually on holiday! (This also means I get like two minutes a day of good wifi, so good luck with the posting)
> 
> Anyhoo,
> 
> I was over the moon with Shiro's reveal! it's a win for us, and I'm hella happy for the rep! Along with that, I love, love, _loooove_ Adam already, despite knowing like, three things about him and I wanted to put him into this fic ASAP, but I feel like I wouldn't be able to do him justice by just sticking him in here all of a sudden. Y'all can definitely expect him in the next fic I decide to write! I want to do a solo Adashi/Shadam fic soon and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
> 
> I debated putting in that stupid Shrek quote for over an hour with myself. But then I realised that it really doesn't matter how dumb I decided to get, if I want onions in my damn fic, then I bloody well will have 'em.
> 
> Also, both the boys have interesting secrets. Hunk's probably going to try and talk to Lance about his current motivations in the next chapter.
> 
> Leave a kudos or a comment if you're into this!
> 
> (I SHOULD PROBABLY DO THE DISCLAIMER AT SOME POINT - I DON'T OWN THESE CHARACTERS, THEY BELONG TO DREAMWORKS, AND A LOT OF THE TERMINOLOGY IS FROM JONATHAN STROUD'S LOCKWOOD AND CO. SERIES. CARRY ON NOW)
> 
> The chapter title is from "I'll put a Spell on You" from Hocus Pocus (yeah, that Disney Movie.)
> 
> And come yell about your theories for S7 with me on [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/book_bass_art)
> 
> [this chapter has now been beta'd by [Silvamoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvamoon)!]


	5. It's Never to Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith has a past, and so does Lance. 
> 
> Hunk tries to connect the dots and finds out he's missed a few things along the way.
> 
> (also, there's a lot of head bumping goin' on, but I don't know how that happened; I guess I'm just unintenionally violent and I apologise for that.)

**KEITH, Tuesday, 12:00 am, Garrison Dormitories - Room 205**

 

His room is dim, but the ascot he’s been folding and unfolding incessantly doesn’t seem to get sucked into the darkness.

 

It’s _weird._

 

Keith glances at the other twin bed in the room. His roommate had left a few hours ago, yelling about a bootleg party at the Garrison’s only frat house. It’s the middle of the week but that’s not an issue for his roommate. Keith can’t even remember the guy’s name, he’s been out partying or doing god knows what longer than he’s ever been in—all he has to place his roommate in a crowd is his dirty blond hair, a pointed needle nose and half-lidded eyes that spoke of a perpetual, lazy minded content. Typical for a frat kid with no worries, Keith supposed.

 

In some ways he envied him.

 

But whatever, Keith shakes his head—he’s digressing. What’s important is that his roommate’s out for today. Out for _this;_ the party flyers that Keith has been surreptitiously leaving around the place had been a gamble that paid off.

 

His phone beeps from its place on his nightstand. It’s an old Motorola flip that’s definitely seen better days, and despite Shiro’s heckling—telling him to _“hell, just upgrade to a basic Android model, you dinosaur_ ,” Keith was a creature of habit, leaving Shiro to debate the pros Androids had over iPhones on his own, because he’d be damned if he didn’t stick to his relic until it crumbled into dust.

 

As for now, he simply reaches out to dismiss the screeching alert blinking up at him from a heavily scratched screen; it’s the twenty-seventh of November, if the calendar on his wall is anything to go by. It’s unmarked, save for the big red slash cutting through the day’s date.

 

The calendar’s not even that necessary. Keith’s gone through the motions countless times over years, once a month, on the dot. It’s ingrained into him like a tattoo.

 

Pushing off his bed with a heavy sigh, he gets up only to settle down on a chair in a corner of the room.

 

But he gets up again, just moments later, to squint at the time on his phone. He’d set an alarm for a reason.

 

_12:02 am_

 

Two more minutes, give or take.

 

There's a loud thump from the room upstairs, followed by muffled laughter. Keith scowls at the ceiling. “Keep it in your pants,” he mutters.

 

He squirms in place for a second, feeling like he’s forgotten something. The time stamp on his phone goes up by a minute and with a jolt Keith remembers what he needs.

 

Keith dives under his bed, scrambling around for the box he’d placed there last week. He has to sift through dust bunnies and old socks; a half eaten sandwich greets him midway. It’s definitely not his.

 

The green mold covering the sandwich makes him wrinkle his nose in disgust and he pushes on towards the end, where his bed meets the wall. He spots his box, and with a grunt of recognition, surges forward to grab and pull it out from underneath the bed in a single movement, clipping his head on the edge when he finally sits. Its lid is pulled up and set on the ground in front of the chair. He ignores the burn at the top of his head, anticipation overriding all other emotions. 

 

Keith's phone beeps again and his screen flashes one last time to sound off at 12:04 am.

 

Without any ceremony, without any _warning,_ the temperature drops to zero momentarily and there’s a second person in the room with him.

 

Presence. _Whatever._

 

“Dad,” says Keith in greeting, rubbing roughly at his arms.

 

The chill doesn’t stay around for too long, but it bites enough to hurt at a bone deep level. He realises it’s just like getting ghost touched but without the breathlessness and the overwhelming urge to just _give up._

 

The smell of smoke and ash fills his nose and his father looks on at him. He doesn’t say anything in return, he doesn’t move. He’s as rigid as a royal guard; like a holograph or a statue. Only his eyes track around him and his lips curls minutely depending on his mood. Today, he’s has a soft, sad smile on his face.

 

He struggles against the hold on him.

 

It’s not that Keith expects him to do much. He’s used to this. Used to his father showing up once a month on the dot for years now, only to freeze in the middle of his room and stare at him. There’s nothing Keith can do about it

 

“I’ve gotten busy,” he says conversationally, getting into it right away.

 

His father nods--it’s a barely there movement that anyone else would have missed, but Keith’s had years to figure this out. His father remains silent as he flickers a little around the edges; parts of him fade into ether.

 

“There’s this...club,” he says, hesitating and staying true to his taciturn nature. He scans his father’s face for any sign of recognition and gets another indiscernible nod—it’s good enough for him, and the apprehension he feels at the beginning of every nightly encounter he has with his father slips away; his words flow faster. “Right, and, I’m only joining it because of Shiro. He’s in a spot of trouble at the moment. Not that he’s aware of it,” Keith adds blandly at the end. “He’s haunted, er, but not like you and me,” he says quickly, looking up at his father apologetically. As still as he is, there’s a hint of amusement in his eyes, he’s laughing at his son, but it puts him at ease, “Whatever this _thing_ following him around is, it’s tried to off him. It’s _definitely_ not at all like you.”

 

The smirk slides off his face, replaced with a concerned frown instead.

 

“It’s just for a while,” Keith continues, “just until we figure out what’s mucking around at the Manor. I don’t plan to stay on after that,” he says, ignoring the disapproving tilt that now shapes his father’s eyebrows. Even from beyond the grave and _in stasis_ he insists on meddling in Keith’s interpersonal affairs. “I’m not ready to deal with more.” He pushes on, not specifying what his _more_ is. It’s probably everything. He already has one skeleton in his closet and he’s not sure if he wants to make space to put in a few more.

 

He inches the box over to the apparition with a sock clad foot. “On the flip side, I’ve learned something. I think I know why _this_ has never worked out,” he says, gesturing between them. When his father’s brows fold into themselves, Keith elaborates, “The cadets at this club, they can all sense spirits, like I can sense you. And I have no idea how this got past me for the last couple of years, but _Pidge_ is one of them. _Us_. She can hear and see spirits, but on a pretty basic level from I gathered. Her vision’s pretty screwy since she usually has no idea what she’s looking at half the time. Her other friends are a part of the club as well. I think I’ve told you about them before. We don’t get along. There’s Hunk—we have simulations together. He can hear the spirits.

 

"And,” Keith sighs heavily through his nose. “ _Lance_ . Lance McClain. That... _asshole_.”

 

His father’s face clears up, the humour is back in place. Keith isn’t looking at him.

 

“I only have a vague idea of what his _thing_ is, so..." he trails off, not sure what to say about Lance in general, but hey, what's new?

 

Keith gets up to stalk around his room, “It makes sense, I guess. I just found out that my, er, _sight_ senses are better than average, but I can’t hear anything.”

 

“I can’t hear _you,”_ he asserts quietly. “And none of this can tell me why you can’t move. There’s no other spirit out there like you. I need to know _why._ ”

 

His father looks upset _,_ there’s a sad tilt to his mouth, his eyes hold a weight of emotion, but it’s hard to decipher. “S’not your fault,” is all Keith adds.

 

He points half heartedly at the box, it’s an Ouija board. “I thought we’d try communicating with this today,” he says, “Got a pretty solid one off at the local market’s rummage. Do you think you can telepathically shift a planchette?”

 

His phone reads 12:08. He has a minute left.

 

Keith sighs, “I mean, I guess we have nothing to lose,” he follows up, now looking expectant. “Go on, I guess.”

 

It doesn’t work, his father's gaze is fixed on the board but it doesn’t even quiver. It’s not like the movies.

 

“Argh.” Keith growls in frustration, his father’s expression mirrors his own. “I’ll figure something out, Dad,” he says forlornly, as his phone beeps in warning. He screws his eyes shut, hand reaching out to grasp at his father in farewell. The air remains static and warm around him.

 

When he opens his eyes, he’s alone once more.

 

* * *

 

**HUNK, Tuesday, 12:am, Garrison Dormitories - Room 105**

 

“Ugh, that’s ghastly. I want ten.”

 

“Pidge, it’s barely September. Why the hell do you want ugly sweaters now?” Hunk asks. _It’s too late for this,_ he thinks, peering over Lance’s shoulder as he scrolls past Amazon’s slash sale prices. Lance clicks on a tab and they’re greeted with a sweater that has two snowmen in mankinis printed on it, their carrot noses are the only things sticking out three dimensionally, right over a proposed nipple. The whole thing is followed with a cursory ‘ _Ho, Ho, Ho.’_

 

Hunk groans at the ridiculous image. _Yeah, too fucking late._

 

Lance snorts, “Hey Pidge, you know that Halloween’s, like, _tomorrow_.”

 

“Shut it. I’ve already gotten my spooky shit ready and waiting,” Pidge says. “I just wanna get ahead of the curve.”

 

“Just stick a picture of your face on a sweater, save your money.” Lance chirps.

 

“Why, you _little fuc-”_

 

Lance untangles himself from the pretzel knot the three of them had invariably ended up in and dances away from Pidge. She whaps him in the face with a cushion instead, and the two collapse to the floor with a bang and howl in conjoined laughter.

 

Hunk scowls.

 

Or at least, he wants to. He tries to fight the smile forming at his lips because _someone_ clearly needed to reprimand the two hooligans at his side. “Hey, as this floor's RA, it is my duty to tell you two to _knock it off.”_

 

“Ah, cry me a river Hunkydory,” says Lance, flopping over and leaning all his weight against Hunk's shoulder. “If I recall correctly,  _you_ wanted to roll down the corridor on a laundry tub just last week.”

 

Hunk flushes and lets his shoulders go limp, Lance tumbles down with all the grace of a baby cow. He gives Hunk a baleful gaze as he tends to his bruised bottom. “You're forgetting that I vetoed the idea almost as fast as I had come up with it.” Hunk retaliates with the final nail in the coffin as he ignores his friend's theatrics.

 

“Responsibility has turned you into a boring, old man, Hunk,” says Pidge solemnly.

 

Hunk gasps, “You say that like it's a bad thing. For the record, I've always been a level headed person.”

 

“Bo- _ring!”_

 

 _“_ Look, I'm just saying. If I have to deal with the RA downstairs one more time just because of you two, I'm suspending all my friend benefits.”

 

Lance looks at him with fear in his eyes. “So no garlic knots?”

 

“Or Presley sandwiches,” Hunk confirms, glancing at Pidge. She sticks her tongue out at him.

 

“James Griffin can suck it just because he's _suuuch_ a stickler for rules and can't handle any noise over twenty hertz.” Pidge huffs.

 

“He's an excellent RA,” Hunk says loyally. “just a little…rigid, I suppose.”

 

“He's got a stick wedged so far up his ass that you could literally yank it out his mouth if he yawned,” Lance quips suddenly with a snide lilt, disdain and irritation dripping off his tongue.

 

The room falls into silence because no one can believe that Lance just said _that_.

 

“Wow, Lance, really? That's the meanest you've ever gotten about _anybody,”_ Hunk says in surprise. He pokes his friend in the shoulder, grinning over the nettled look he’s given in exchange. “Who are you and what have you done with _our_ Lance, Ocean Man Extraordinaire?”

 

But it’s true, Lance never had any serious beef with anyone—not even Keith when you really thought about it, which was usually uncalled for, but _that_ was just a volley of childish behaviour based on misplaced... _tension_? This time, however, the vitriol in his tone was enough to set alarm bells ringing.

 

Lance suddenly looks abashed. “I mean,” he says in a tight voice. “He’s a bit of a dick...”

 

“Lance is just mad that James is the only person that Keith’s smiled at in the last couples of weeks,” says Pidge with a dangerous glint in her eyes, before turning back to her laptop and clapping her headphones over her ears. The music supposedly drowns out the strangled yelp Lance lets out.

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, that's kinda out of the box, yeah?” Hunk's says, feeling the need to intervene. “what does Keith have to do with anything?” he asks mildly, but he admits to himself, that at this point, it’s _always_ something to do with Keith whenever Lance is around to fit into the equation.

 

He fully expects Lance to claim all deniability—to get all defensive and red cheeked as he usually does—and is aptly confused when he goes ahead with an affirmative grunt instead. “Griffin was an ass to him barely three years ago,” he says with a obstinate frown. “You were there for that fight, Hunk. He just tore into Keith.”

 

“I dunno why that's got you so hung up over anything,” says Hunk. “Why'd you even care? Besides Griffin’s _had_ three years to grow up, I can testify that he's at least a halfway decent guy by now. I bet they just kissed and made up.”

 

 _Oh shit_ , he thinks, watching Lance's face screw up in an amalgamation of emotions. _Wrong choice of words._

 

This hypothesis that he’d been carrying around for a while now—the one that only seemed to solidify after talking to Keith—seems to be shaping up well enough to make some sense to Hunk now, but there's a lot of inconsistencies on Lance's part that's left him confused.

 

Lance stays quiet this time, turning away from Hunk and diverting all his energy into poking at a hole in jeans.

 

“Dude,” he says softly, biting down on his impatience.  He tugs Lance’s hand away, causing his friend to train his scowl back on him. “You know, it's all right to just come out and say it.”

 

Lance gives him a look that dares him to continue. He seems furious. “What do you mean?” he says, swallowing down his anger and feigning nonchalance. His eyes, however, dare Hunk to continue.

 

Hunk sighs. _Why does Lance always insist on making everything as painful as possible?_

 

“C’mon,” he says instead, ignoring Lance’s protests and Pidge’s sideways glance. She looks on curiously, but he whispers a soft “Trust me.” and she lets it go with a reluctant nod and goes back to her browsing for good this time.

 

Hunk gets up and tugs Lance along with him towards their dinky, little kitchen. “We need to talk.”

 

“But I don’t wanna!” Lance responds childishly, coming to a stubborn halt outside the door.

 

“Stop stalling and get in here.” He gives Lance another pull and smirks when the lankier boy flies in.

 

“This is harassment,” he says sullenly.

 

“This is an _intervention._ ” Hunk remedies.

 

“Those never work. Boooo.”

 

Hunk abandons him in the middle of the room, leaving the sad sack to deal with his brain for a few seconds alone. In the meantime, he starts combing through his shelves, looking out for a bowl and a bag of popcorn kernels.

 

Lance props himself up on the counter and leans against the microwave, eyeing Hunk lazily as he shakes a bag loose and pops it in.

 

They say nothing to each other for a while, the microwave’s periodic beeping, and eventually, the sound of popping kernels being the only things to fill in the silence between them.

 

Hunk knows exactly what he's doing. A minute and half spent staring at the bag in their microwave expand and fizzle slowly goes by and Lance starts to crack.

 

He starts fidgeting, crossing and uncrossing his legs first. Then, he starts tapping out over the top of the microwave. Hunk's tempted to whack his hands off the top, but holds back.

 

 _Patience_. He could do with some.

 

Lance sighs once. Twice. He's staring imploringly at Hunk now with big, baby eyes, but they're really not working. He's more scrappy than adorable, so any appeal he tries to go for inevitably gets lost in translation.

 

Hunk's remains annoyingly silent, finding Lance's irritation hilarious.

 

He finally opens his mouth to speak and Hunk pumps a fist at his side. But “ _Keith_ —” is all he's able to choke out before he clams up again.

 

Hunk hums, perhaps Lance just needed a nudge. “I know you like Keith,” he says.

 

Lance sits up so fast that he bumps his head against the shelf above him. “I-” he splutters uselessly, arms flailing around in surprise, “I-who gave you that idea?” he winces and rubs his head belatedly, looking a little dazed at the impact.

 

“You,” Hunk says with a smug grin. “You like _Keith.”_

 

“Do not.”

 

“Do too.”

 

“No.”

 

“ _Yes_.” The microwave dings. “Then what were you gonna say about him, huh?” Hunk prys, watching Lance’s face intently for a tell.

 

His face falls, “I … don’t really know anymore,” he says with a frustrated growl. He looks utterly defeated.

 

Hunk gives Lance a kind smile. “Buddy, it’s alright if you have feelings for him,” he says, laying a warm hand on his shoulder. “Like I know you’re going through a crisis or something because you went ahead and proclaimed him your, er, rival or whatev-”

 

“It’s not that.” Lance cuts him off with bitter growl.

 

Hunk blinks. “Then, what is it?” he asks.

 

“I called him my rival _because_ I liked him. And note the past tense, yeah?”

 

The blinking intensifies. “I’m not sure I follow,” Hunk says, suddenly feeling very drained. Lance really approached situations from the ass up.

 

Actually, things are making a lot of sense right now yet he wishes they weren’t because the only logical explanation for this whole mess is also a very _stupid_ one. “You’re literally pulling on Keith’s pigtails aren’t you?” he says, things suddenly stark and clear against the litany of questions he had barely a minute ago. “You couldn’t handle the feels so you took the childish way out.”

 

Lance looks hurt for a second, but he turns it around and pins Hunk down with an angry scowl. “No, it’s none of that,” he bites out. “You don’t understand. I _had_ to get rid of whatever I felt for him.”

 

“There are consequences for everything you do,” Hunk says, almost feeling angry now. “Keith seems to think that you hate his guts, the dude’s completely at a loss with how he’s to interact with you.”

 

A pained look steals over Lance’s face. “I never intended for it to get out of hand. I thought some mild bickering would have helped me forget but then I guess I ended up going overboard instead of trying to work out everything.”

 

“Work out _what_ , Lance? What are you trying to forget?” Hunk asks, he can tell he’s missing a huge chunk of the story—Lance’s disjointed retelling isn’t helping anyone. Hunk’s also starting to get a little worried, he’s never seen Lance look so out of sorts.

 

“You’re gonna have to start from the beginning, dude.” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

 

The silence stretches between them. Lance twists himself away, almost pulling into himself and looking small on the counter. Hunk busies himself with the bag, pushing the tab away from his face and watching the steam rise in heated rivulets from the depths of the bag.

 

“...okay.”

 

Hunk nods encouragingly, “That’s a start, I guess.”

 

“Says you,” Lance mutters. He lets out a long suffering sigh and makes a weak attempt to straighten up. “You remember first year, yeah? How I met you on our first day?”

 

Hunk chuckles, “Yeah, you barreled into me right outside the Transmute sim.”

 

“Yeah, best chance encounter of the century. We were destined to meet, bud,” Lance says with a small quirk to his lips. “You can—you can thank Keith for that actually.”

 

“Hmm? Oh yeah, I remember you trying to get a glimpse of a hotshot rookie pilot that made it past the fifth level—I’m assuming that was Keith—Isn’t that why you were in such a rush in the first place?”

 

“Yup,” Lance confirms. “I’d actually just gotten back from watching him finish off the HoloScreen sim, plus he had _totally_ done in the Macross training bot just before that.”

 

“Wait, so did you skip orientation just to watch Keith kick ass three different ways?”

 

“Four actually, there was also the-”

 

A piece of popcorn bounces off his forehead, “I get it, you’re a fanboy.” Hunk interrupts him with a grin.

 

Lance wrinkles his nose at that, “ _Was,_ ” he stresses. “That’s in the past. Honestly, putting him up on a pedestal was my Achilles heel.”

 

“That’s oddly poetic.”

 

Lance scoffs at that, “There’s nothing poetic about how... _pathetic_ the whole situation was,” he says, eyes downcast. “He just kinda monopolized all my attention, yanno? I mean I let him, so, it’s not even close to being his fault”

 

“It’s not like he was doing it on purpose, I doubt he even noticed.” Hunk muses, mostly to himself. He misses Lance’s grimace.

 

“He was just so _cool,”_ Lance says pathetically. “I thought he'd at least know who I was. We shared even more classes in our first year than we do right now. Sometimes, I'd congratulate him after one of his more impressive flight simulations—and that was a lot of them—but he was so quiet, he'd just slink around the back of the class, far away in whatever corner he could get. I’d noticed him because of that, it's funny, right? Kinda ironic.”

 

He gestures wildly around him, like he’s struggling to pull out words from thin air even though everything that’s spilling out of his mouth seems effortless, like he’s been holding back all this time. “Keith was so _passionate_ about what he was doing—the only time I saw any emotion on that stupid face of his, and it just got to me. But, don’t get me wrong, he was a little shit sometimes. He used to keep breaking formation on purpose because he found the base level training we all had to go through _boring_ or something yet you could see that he was only truly comfortable in the air.”

 

“But, he never really mixed with anyone at all.” Lance brings a fist down on top of the microwave and Hunk flinches, momentarily distracted.

 

Lance ducks when another piece of popcorn is tossed at him, and apart from pausing once to frown at Hunk, he continues on like nothing had happened. “He would keep to his corners and then just leg it out of class.

 

“In hindsight, I realized that I never actually _spoke_ to him, like, I never went ahead and had a meaningful conversation or said anything that went past a "brilliant maneuver, Kogane" or something that went a little bit ahead of your typical water cooler talk. I could have done more.”

 

Lance scowls at the floor. “And then we were all split up for our second year. Keith got fighter class and I got... _cargo_ . And that sucked, really. It was a huge hit to my self-esteem. Not because Keith made it, obviously, I expected that to happen. It was what he deserved, but at the same time, I’d just let myself-” he pauses, self disdain written all over his face. “- _slip_.”

 

Hunk gives him a mute nod, thinking back to the beginning of their second year. He remembers Lance being unusually quiet for the first few weeks, and oh _god_ , he'd chalked it up to homesickness.

 

Dammit, he was such a dunderhead.

 

“Lance, I-” he starts to say, realising that the conversation had somehow raced so far ahead of what his previous assumption had been—but then he clamps his mouth shut, because how does one reply to all of this anyway?

 

It turns out that Lance is far from done, and he ploughs on, painfully bringing the story to its climax, “I had like, what?” he says, eyebrows knitting together contemplatively, “Only two classes with Keith because of that? We had no simulations together, and I missed being around him, I missed watching him fly. So, yeah it was kind of shitty. But then I decided that I could work my way up, make my mark and be _proud_ of myself for once and while I was at it, I thought I try my hand at reaching out to Keith _properly_ this time.”

 

“I got one thing done,” he says, tapping his shoulder. Had he been wearing his Garrison jacket, his fingers would have been tugging away at the second stripe of his uniform. “I made sure of it.”

 

“But when I asked Keith if he wanted to get lunch with me at the cafeteria—a month into our second term—he just looked at me and all he said was, ‘Do I know you?’”

 

Oh.

 

_Oh._

 

“Welp, there you have it,” Lance says with a long, drawn out exhale. “My ego got pretty banged up and...I guess you were right, Hunk. I _didn’t_ _know_ how to deal with it. It's still kinda bruised. And then I realised that Keith had _no_ idea who I was, that was also the day that I realised that I... _liked_ him.”

 

“Were you, y’know…” Hunks asks delicately.

 

“What?” Lance looks confused for a moment before his eyes widen and his cheeks burn red. “In love with him?" he squeaks, but then his face turns resolute. "Nah, man. The feels were strong, but like I said, I now realise that I'd put him on a pedestal.”

 

“But you still insisted on heckling him at every turn, didn’t you?”

 

Lance makes a pained noise. “It was weird, like, I had a thing for him, but at the same time I was so _jealous_ of him. Or something, I dunno” he shrugs. “I reckon the fall was inevitable, but I just didn't realise it would be me crashing and burning this _badly_.

 

“I might have made it up to fighter class, but he’s always been ahead of me. Everytime I reached out towards him, he just darted forward, and then I was stuck staring at his back, I might have given up just a bit in the middle there. Plus there’s the whole thing about us having the exact same schedule for an entire freaking _year_ and all, and he _still_ had no idea who I was. I guess it all came out whenever we crossed paths. It stung.”

 

Hunk quirks an eyebrow at him and gives him an amused smile. “You actively sought him out half the time, so I’d say that was a lot.”

 

Lance buries his face in his hands, “Argh, I hate second and third year me.”

 

“Eeeh, you’re no saint right now either,” says Pidge from her post by the door.

 

Hunk and Lance jump at the sound of her voice. Lance’s head lovingly embraces the shelf once more, and Hunk silently sends him his sympathies. “The _cheese,_ Pidge?" Lance yelps, "For how long have you been standing there?”

 

“Long enough, the popcorn summoned me,” she says sniffing the air, long and deep. “and I came in hungry after you two didn’t come out, but then I ended up watching a soap opera unfurl right before my eyes instead.”

 

Lance scowls at her. “Hey, this-” he says, gesturing at himself,  “-is genuine _distress_.”

 

Pidge scoffs, “Well, what’re you gonna do about it then, huh?” she says smartly and points an imperious finger at him, “now that I know what the reason for all that unnecessary antagonism is for—misplaced sexual tension, _holy hell_ —I’m gonna keep my eyes on you two. Keith’s my friend as well.”

 

Lance holds his hands up in surrender and Hunk feels like it’s his place to say something in his defence, but Pidge quells them with a pointed look. “I kinda get it, really. I’m not saying that it isn’t one of the dumbest ways I’ve ever seen you tackle a situation, but I know you’re not trying to mess with Keith to intentionally hurt him. Besides, he’s not completely innocent when you two get into your usual kerfuffles from what I’ve seen.”

 

“I’ve tried toning it down this year, I swear. And shut it, it’s not s-sexual tension at all.”

Lance’s ears burn red as he stumbles over the implications.

 

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that,” she quips.

 

“Ugh, anyway. I’m done pouring my heart out.” Lance turns to Hunk with a huff. “Was this _intervention_ enough for you?”

 

“I think I’ve learned a _lot,_ today,” Hunk says slowly. “But I wanna know something. What are you planning to do now?”

 

“Eh?”

 

“Keith’s kinda...with us now, isn’t he?” Hunk says, watching Lance’s face as his eyes widen and then dull, almost forcefully. “What are you gonna do?”

 

“Look, it’s not like he’s going to be a permanent fixture,” Lance says with a shrug. “He’s just gonna be popping in for a while till Shiro’s Manor gets unclogged.”

 

Pidge’s nose wrinkles at his analogy. “Well, I invited him over for the D'cunha scope on Friday—let him in on the cool kids’ club.”

 

Lance freezes and turns his baleful glare on her, “ _Why_ would you do that!”

 

“Hey, this was before I knew about your tortured, emo soul.”

 

“He’s not going to come. You saw the way he ran out on Sunday. He wants nothing to do with this unless he can’t help it.”

 

“And if I say ‘trust me when I say he’ll be there,’ what are you gonna do then?”

 

“Nothing,” he says primly, but his ears verge on a raging shade of red.

 

“Oh please.” Pidge scoffs. "I think I'd know him a little better than you. He's coming so just, I don't know...look alive. Don't screw up."

 

“Look, I’ve been working for _three_ _years_ to get him out of my head and it’s actually working," Lance suddenly bursts like a flimsy dam, eyes flashing as he talks fast but low--tone detached but ice-cold. "I _don’t_ like Keith like that anymore, and soon I’ll forget how I felt about him completely. So, if he does show up, I’m not going to jeopardize our scouting for any reason because I’m _not_ going to care if he’s there or not. He’s just a client and classmate and now because of _you_ , probably a team-mate but _nothing_ more.”

 

If Lance is panting slightly at the end of his angry spiel, no one dares bring it up.

 

Lance rakes a hand through his choppy fringe, still irritated, but now a heavy miasma hangs around him, “I’m kinda tired, gonna get some sleep,” he says wearily, “I want to do a sim in the morning before breakfast. _Night_.”

 

He pushes past his friends and heads to his room, the door banging shut behind him.

 

Pidge steals a few kernels from Hunk’s bag. “He can’t deny his bi for too long,” she says humorlessly.

 

“Don’t be like that.” Hunk admonishes, picking out a few pieces for himself. “It’s good

he’s trying to make an effort to deal with, er, stuff.”

 

“I’m just saying, he kept contradicting himself. Just accepting that he’s still into Keith is a hundred times better than this bottled up bullshit he’s trying to pull off.”

 

“You’d have to deal with pining Lance then.”

 

“It’s still better than this, he’s being all self sacrificial and stupid; I don’t like it.”

 

Hunk gently bumps her shoulder, “I’ll try talking to him again. Things kinda ran off course at the end there, but it’s no use doing it right away because once Lance is set on something, you’re better off trying to move mountains over trying to get him to budge.”

 

“Hmm,” Pidge says.

 

It’s not an agreement, but it’s _something._

 

* * *

 

**ANTOK, Tuesday, 12:15 am, Arizona PD Headquarters - VA Room 1**

 

He’s six hours into a reel of footage. Zilch on any leads. Whoever nicked Slav’s documents was either an absolute pro, or—and this was more likely—non-existent, because Slav stormed the APD nearly every week with either a report for a stolen article or some ridiculous, otherworldly doomsday warning. There was no inbetween.

 

Godspeed to whoever got stuck on reel duty after he made his customary appearance; the tiny man would walk in with a stack of the appropriate documents _and_ fifteen tapes from every camera he’s set up around and within his house, all while angrily muttering about statistics and alternate realities.

 

 _“There is a 45.72 percent chance that you die before you turn thirty in every reality,_ ” he had said to Antok, one day.

 

Antok’s twenty-nine.

 

It took Antok everything he had to stop himself from grabbing one of his tapes and breaking it over his head, but he couldn’t because it was mandatory procedure to comb through _every_ piece of submitted evidence.

 

And well, the threat of expulsion and possibly a fine or something held him back.

 

Antok slams his head against his desk, upsetting his keyboard and smashing keys as it tumbles off the table, but he saves it from inevitable disaster as he catches it right before it hits the floor by the end of its wire. His head throbs as he resurfaces, but his actions are apparently not in vain.

 

The video he’s currently scrubbing had skipped forward by another half hour and had slowed down to a frame where Slav was exiting his house at four in the evening with a bundle of sheets tucked under his arm.

 

His eyes widen and he replays the last ten seconds. He zeroes in on the sheets in Slav’s hand and zooms in.

 

This _imbecile_ had them on him all this time.

 

The feed continues onwards, following Slav as he makes his way to a little garage where his Beetle is parked. He tosses his sheets in a haphazard pile at the back and gets in.

 

Antok pauses the video and groans out loud.

 

He’s not getting paid enough for this.

 

But on the flip side, that’s one mystery solved. He pulls out a notepad he’s kept aside solely for Slav’s escapades and flips to the newest page; he’s set a new record, it only took him an hour to get to the bottom of this week’s mess.  

 

Marking it off, he pops his pad back into its original place and gets to work on his next case.

 

 

 

 

He’s free to choose whatever case he wants as long as all the priority cases have been taken care of first.

 

But so far, nothing seems interesting. Antok wants some spice in his life.

 

Missing cats? Nope, he’s not ready to spend six hours watching a feed of Mrs Boh’s Persian languidly stretching out in the sun while he’s stuck in _here_.

 

Anyway, a case of petty theft at Vrepit Sal’s? Perhaps.

 

Well, well, well, well, well. Antok opens up his next manila file; it has a little knife drawn on it and the first thing he sees is a clipping of a fancy, old VIctorian style Manor.

 

 _Now_ this _has potential._ He thinks.

 

There’s nothing else in the file apart from a singular security tape.

 

Antok lets out a low whistle and furtively looks around him, he knows he’s alone but it’s not too much of a hassle to double check. This has Thace's doing written all over it, he has to be careful.

 

The file might be empty, but that’s not the case when it comes to the side jobs that Thace entrusts him with. Antok pulls out a pen from his pocket, turns the butt end towards the paper and clicks down.

 

An ultraviolet beam lights up the file, but the ink’s already disappearing, he’d gotten to it in just a nick of time.

 

 _Make a copy of everything from 02:35 - 02:50 am and drop off by 1500 hours tomorrow._ The words read, there might have been something after that, but the text had faded.

 

Well then.

 

He pops the CD into a player and fast-forwards the tape, playing it at its regular speed at 02:34. It looks to be a shot of a side entrance, with half a window visible that looks into a kitchen. A little overhanging protects the door from above and light attached to it flickers wildly before fizzling out. The video’s almost static, it would have passed for a picture had it not been for a sapling bending gently with the breeze.

 

It’s still a few seconds before his recommended time frame, but Antok notes down the flickering lights. At 02:35 am, the screen turns _off._

 

_No, no, something’s up._

 

The tape’s not messed up, something on the other side is blocking the footage, the screen ripples once, twice and then clears. He pauses the video and leans back in his chair, utterly confused.

 

He rubs at his chin contemplatively, and then rewinds it once more. This time he holds the frame at the moment before it goes black.

 

Nothing. The scene’s undisturbed. Antok can’t see much because his only source of light is out.

 

He skips to the end of the black out, and this time, he sees a difference.

 

The branches, the ones that were gently swaying earlier are now edging towards lifelessness at the ends. He’s unsure, but it looks like their tips are devoid of any colour. He pens that down as well, unsure what to make of it.

 

There’s still another ten seconds of the recording left, but there’s nothing else to note. Antok decides to give the entire video a last run over.

 

The tape actually runs from midnight to six in the morning, it takes time to give the reel even a 4x speed run; halfway in at 03:09 hours, Antok takes a break. He gives the screen a last look and swivels around to grab his cold cup of coffee but pauses mid-way and rushes back to his screen, because _holy hell,_ how did anyone miss this?

 

Well, it’s barely noticeable, for one. It’s still dark, but there’s no mistaking the knife behind the window once you actually see it. The knife’s at eye level, _but there’s no one holding it._ It’s _literally_ just floating in mid air.

 

He finally notices something else of interest, a real clue. The knife’s obviously huge for Thace’s case, but it’s also inexplicable—his practical mind tucks that information away to be pondered over only once he’s cleared everything else—but the _hand_ peeking out just behind the curtain is definitely something they can work with.

 

He lets the video rewind a few seconds and then play on forward; it becomes clear that this mystery hand never touches the knife, it flies up into sight on its own.

 

Antok worries his lip, this is ridiculous. He scribbles down the words _knife_ and _magic???_ On his notepad, his brain still reeling from what he’s just witnessed. Then he scratches it out because if anyone saw that, he'd get egged the next time he drove in. Cops were cruel sometimes.

 

The curtains shifts imperceptibly, but Antok catches on now; completely on high alert. He catches a glimpse of a profile, it’s barely the tip of a nose and mouth, but it’s enough for him to let out an audible gasp. He _knows_ that profile. Hell, he’s seen it around the precinct way too many times, but this time he has something legible to put down in his report.

 

 **_S-_ ** , he writes, and then stops.

 

The world spins. His head’s suddenly ( _painfully_ ) slumped against his desk.

 

Mildly surprised, Antok registers a dull ache somewhere around the base of his skull and prods at it. He hisses in pain when he makes contact and his hands comes back coated with blood. He’s in a fog; everything moves slowly. A hand moves into his periphery, it’s the same one from the video, he realises. Same scar along the forearm.

 

“Why are you doing this?” he asks his assailant.

 

He gets no answer. The sheet he’d been writing on gets ripped out, the tape is pulled out from its player. Antok knows that Something is Very Wrong, but his body refuses to cooperate.

 

“S-stop it.” he rasps. “I’m afraid I have to r-report you, S-”

 

His head explodes with pain once more; he slides off his desk and gets scooped up like a rag doll. Where he’s going to end up remains a mystery.

 

This time Antok closes his eyes and doesn’t open them again.

 

Before he loses himself to the darkness, he inexplicably thinks of of the number 45.72.

 

Things don't look so good.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooo, another chapter! I have no excuses for the month long break. Just...summer, y'know how it is.
> 
> I have waited so long to write Keith's father into a fic, but I literally do not know what to call this dude, and it's the worst thing ever. Also, he had like two minutes of screen time, and while I know he's this dutiful and serious person in canon, but I took a few artistic liberties and gave him a bit of a more meddlesome and heckling personality in contrast with Krolia's canon, super stoic one for this fic. Idk if this was a good move, but we'll see how it goes. ALSO KEITH GETS LIKE FIVE MINUTES WITH HIM ONCE A MONTH AND LITERALLY CANNOT DO JACK ABOUT IT. IT'S SAD, AND I KNOW I WROTE THIS MYSELF BUT NOW I'M MAD AT ME.
> 
> So James makes a cameo! (In passing at least, he might actually end up on scene, I dunno. He's no Adam, so I don't intend take the time to flesh out his character. But I guess he's still an ok dude) I really liked the MFE fighters this season. Leifsdottir and RIzavi are babes and Kinkade is just so ... _hot._ I wanna try and sneak the rest of 'em in later on. Gotta re-write a few my notes I think.
> 
> I headcanon that Lance would naturally get jealous around James, bec ey, he's _supposed_ to be Keith's actual rival (Im kinda salty about this, but it's k, I'll work with it), so where would that leave Lance? He has his spot to defend! (Also, in this case, Keith and James fixed their beef and have no issues between themselves. It's not a friendship, but they grudgingly tolerate each other. Lance is appropriately a Child about this.)
> 
> So, I had started the chapter way before s7, so the roommate, just in case any of y'all get confused, is not James. It's Rolo! (pointy nose and half-lidded eyes, the man of my dreams, lmao. he's kinda cute so I wanted to put him in as well.)
> 
> Also, RIP Antok. I love each and every Blade member but they drop like flies. 
> 
> Anyway, my monologue is done. Title is from "Sally's Song" by Amy Lee (The Nightmare Before Christmas!) Leave a kudos or a comment if you liked this! (Or y'know, if you noticed something that I goofed up, lmk)


	6. It's Close To Midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge and Matt hold an intervention. Keith ambushes Shiro, and _something_ ambushes Keith.
> 
> Lance ... doesn't know how to reach a middle ground.

**SHIRO, Friday, 5:28 pm, The Holts Residenc e**

 

They’re messing around in the kitchen; Shiro’s draining the pasta, Matt stirs the sauce.

 

Pidge... _supervises_.

 

Apparently cooking their weekend dinners were a Matt and Pidge tradition, and instead of watching Shiro stubbornly refuse to rest his injured leg and end up aggravating it further, they had dragged him in on their plans and sat him on a stool next to them and under their constant supervision as he helped.

 

'Helped' being the key word here. Shiro wasn't allowed to add or take away from the dish for his ...  _brand_ of cooking often tasted better coming up instead of going down. The man could burn water if you let him be.

 

“Put a little more elbow into it,” Pidge says imperiously to Matt from her perch on the little island in the middle of the kitchen.

 

“How’s about you come down here and show us how to do it, eh?” Matt counters, throwing a hand towel at her. It lands neatly over her head and she huffs.

 

“Mom won’t let me cook, this is best I can do.”

 

“You burnt last week’s dinner on purpose, you heathen. I know you were helping Hunk with his pork lau lau yesterday.”

 

“I can neither confirm nor deny that, my dude.” Pidge winks at her brother and he scowls back at her; she thumbs her nose at him and he lets out an indignant squawk before pouncing on his sister.

 

Shiro puts the colander away and leans a hip against the edge of the sink, settling back to watch the two siblings bicker between themselves with a fond smile playing on his lips. It’s not the first time he’s sent out a small thank-you to the universe for giving him such good friends.

 

Nay, _best_ friends.

 

“Thanks” he says out loud. When the Holt siblings turn to look at him in an eerie sort of synchronisation—Pidge has her hands fisted tightly in Matt's collar while he desperately scrambles to ruffle her hair.

 

Shiro takes in the scene with a raised eyebrow and just shrugs, “for everything, I guess.” he concludes.

 

He may not be able to get all of his words out there, but they seem to get what he means. Pidge hops off table and gives Shiro a bone crushing hug, her skinny elbows poking at him although he can’t bring himself to bother. Matt comes over as well, not wanting to be left out of the huddle and envelopes his sister and best friend into a hug of his own.

 

This was the cushion, now came the _news_.

 

“You know,” he says, still holding on tightly, “you guys have been too kind to me—Sam and Colleen as well.”

 

He stops because he’s suddenly choking on Matt’s puffy hair, some of which had somehow managed to go up his nose. “You gotta use some gel or something, man,” he mutters under breath, “but I’m just intruding at this point.” he says a little more loudly. “I’ve been here for nearly an entire week, I really can’t impose you lot any longer.”

 

“What are you talking about?” says Matt, eyebrows disappearing into his hair. He lets go of Shiro and Pidge follows suit, the two taking a step back to scrutinize him.

 

Shiro feels his ears go warm under the weight of their heavy stares. He feels like a rowdy child brought to the principal's office “I was thinking of leaving tomorrow,” he says. “perhaps in the morning, I have to tell Colleen and Sam as well, perhaps after dinner.”

 

Matt and Pidge exchange glances. Obviously, they’re concerned, but Shiro detects a another layer of  _something_ to their interaction. There was something in Pidge’s eyes that made her look almost frantic when she looked at Matt.

 

“Absolutely not.” she says sharply as she turns to address him. “It’s too _da—_ I mean you should wait for a little while longer, at least until your leg heals.”

 

The second the words leave her mouth, Shiro feels his left leg twinge and curses his luck.

 

“And why is that?” he asks, a stab of irritation makes him speak a little more gruffly than he would have liked, but in that moment no one flinches. “I’ve dealt with worse,” he says, words laden with meaning. Pidge’s eyes snap to his arm and then back to his eyes. She looks looks down with a guilty frown on her face and pulls out her phone from her pocket before she silently hops back on the counter, turning her back on Shiro. 

 

Shiro thinks he might have gone too far, been too dramatic. But honestly? He didn't need to be babied. With that in mind he focuses his glare on Matt

 

“The doc insisted you stay put for two weeks at a minimum—something you can’t do if you stay at home on your own! You have _stairs_ to climb up.” Matt insists, taking up in her stead. “Look, man. Sanda’s already written you off for the next fortnight, you can just continue studying here,” he holds up a hand to silence Shiro when he opens his mouth to protest, “Yeah, I know you have your students’ work back there. I can go there and shuffle ‘em over to Iverson if that’ll keep you in place. If you’re worried about your thesis, I’ll bring _those_ files over here and you can work them out in your room ”

 

“My study’s a mess, you’d need me to find everything.”

 

“That’s not happening, I don’t have the strength to lug you around if your leg suddenly decides it's had enough.” Matt says with a stern frown. “Look, we’ll talk about this later, Mom’s going to get home soon and we need to set the table.”

 

“Yeah, uh, Shiro.” Pidge says, hesitantly breaking the sudden silence. “Take over the sauce while we lay out the plates.” She tucks her phone back in her pocket and pulls Matt back out with her. Matt pushes something woden and a little warm into Shiro’s hand and goes along with Pidge.

 

Shiro doesn’t have a chance to say anything else, he’s left alone in the kitchen staring dumbly at the spoon in his hand, dripping sauce all over his shoes.

 

“Wait—” he says.

 

“—th’s coming. Gotta let Mom know ASAP” Pidge is saying. “ _He_ needs to talk to him or—”

 

They’ve left.

 

Shiro lets out a heavy sigh and settles back on the stool with a scowl. He sticks the spoon back in the pot and stirs.

 

 

 

 

There’s an extra seat made at the table today. “Are we expecting someone?” Shiro asks, looking between Matt and PIdge. Counting Sam, Colleen and himself, five chairs at their round table is a standard. But today, everyone moves in a bit further, tightening the squeeze.

 

The empty chair is right next to him; in between Pidge and himself.

 

“Oh, yes!” Colleen says. “Keith’s coming over, right? He’s going to be a bit late for dinner.” she says with a slight frown, “hope you lot save enough for him.”

 

“He was coming over to pick up something, so I figured, why not give him something to eat that’s _not_ Garrison slop.” Pidge explains with a shifty grin. “But I think he’ll be here sooner, don’t worry, Ma.”

 

“Keith’s coming?” Shiro says in surprise. “How on—how’s he even going to get here?” The Holt’s aren’t too far from the garrison, but it’s still a good fifteen minutes by car at least. Keith doesn’t _have_ a car.

 

It’s at that moment everyone hears the roar of an engine streaking down the street, it’s slows to a purr a few seconds later, but it’s just so incredibly _loud_ and then comes to a stop outside the Holt’s gate.

 

“Guess that answers your question.” Matt says smugly.

 

“C’mon,” Pidge says to Shiro as she excuses herself to open the door.

 

He follows dumbly, wondering when and _how_ Keith had saved up enough to buy a ride for himself, but then he thinks back to the time he recruited the kid into the Garrison and pales. _Oh shit._ He thinks.

 

The door barely opens and he rushes out to meet Keith. “You didn’t nick that, did you?” he says in a rush, completely foregoing any semblance of a greeting before he actually stops to look at the ...  _thing_ Keith had arrived on.

 

“Wait, _why_ would you even want to nick that?” he says after a second.

 

The hoverbike Keith had arrived on might have had an engine with the heart of a stallion fitted into it but it had the body of a ... well, Shiro couldn’t really think of anything close enough to use as an appropriate analogy to describe the monstrosity Keith had ridden on the way here. It looked like a banged up Norton Nemesis, and Shiro couldn’t quite imagine anything looking worse than one of those.

 

Keith tosses him his trademark scowl, looking thoroughly offended. “Hey.” he says defensively, pushing down on the stand and jumping off. The bike wobbles in place, its noisy creaking cutting through the silence of the quiet suburban neighbourhood they were in. “I didn’t steal it.”

 

“That thing’s definitely a fire hazard waiting to go off.” Pidge says, eyeing his smoking exhaust.

 

“I also didn’t come here to have my bike completely ragged, all right?” he adds testily.

 

“Right, you came to pick up ‘something.’” Shiro says skeptically, holding up his fingers in quotation marks. He misses the way Pidge and Keith stiffen at his words, but he’s a little too preoccupied over being hurt that no one had bothered to tell him his best friend was coming over, not even the guy in question _himself_.

 

“I literally came over two days ago, stop looking at me like I kicked your dog.” Keith says with a grin. “besides, Pidge called me over barely half an hour ago. I _could_ have had plans with the flight sim.”

 

Shiro grunts, not happy at all with the explanation. “Sure,” he says.

 

They get back to the others and Sam and Colleen greet Keith with beaming smiles which are returned in kind, “Good to see you, son.” says Sam, clapping him on the shoulder as they seat themselves.

 

“We were wondering what that ruckus outside was all about.” Matt interjects.

 

“That was Keith’s death trap.” says Pidge.

 

Keith glares at her, “I’m working on it. Give me a break.”

 

“You were fixing up that hoverbike?” Shiro asks in surprise.

 

“D’you remember when I started working at the auto gate on campus a couple of week ago” Keith asks before sticking a jacket potato into his mouth and Shiro nods an affirmative as a reply. “Coran— ah, he’s the head mechanic,” he says between chews, “he decided to let me work on a side project, so I scrubbed their salvage heap and started working on this really old Norton model.”

 

 _Ah, so my hunch was right._ Shiro thinks smugly. Then he questions why he was so jubilant in the first place.

 

Matt lets out a low whistle, “Dude, that’s metal.” he says as Pidge looks at Keith with a raised eyebrow.

 

“I didn’t know Coran manned the auto shop as well.” she says.

 

“You know him?”

 

“He’s, ah, our club adviser.”

 

“Oh, you haven’t said much about your research club in ages _.”_ Colleen says, and Shiro notices Keith raise a questioning eyebrow _back_ at Pidge but she seems to pointedly look away from him and busies herself instead with pouring a generous dollop of sauce over her pasta.

 

“Yeah, no new developments until recently.” she says quickly, her somewhat dismissive tone irking her mother, if the look on Colleen’ face is anything to go by. Shiro ends up sending her a disappointed frown as well because of his innate dad senses, but she doesn’t seem to notice, all her focus is suddenly trained back on Keith instead. “Anyway, Keith. When are you gonna finish fixing it up? If that’s even remotely possible, I mean.”

 

Keith scowls at Pidge, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “I'm not sure, really.” he says slowly, taking his time to organise his thoughts, “Half the time I don’t know what I’m doing, Coran’s really patient with me—so I’m picking up stuff—but it’ll take a while.”

 

“And you rode it  all the way down here like that?” Shiro asks wryly, pinching the bridge of his nose. Keith was definitely going to end up in a hospital ward at the end of all of this. That _bucket_ he came in looked like it was going to fall apart any moment now, and he was proud of Keith, don’t get him wrong, the kid was doing something he evidently seemed to like—and even under all the unwarranted sass he was throwing at him, Shiro could see some of the pride that managed to make it past his usual grumpy demeanor when he mentioned the hoverbike—but he just wasn’t, er, _technically gifted_. “Seriously, Pidge,” he continues,  “do you think you could drop him back to campus or something? If I had my car—”

 

“Shiro.” Keith bites out, as Pidge wordlessly waves her hands at Shiro, removing herself from the conversation _“I’m not getting in the middle of this.”_ her face seems to say. “Red’s in perfect condition, there’s nothing wrong with her—”

 

“Oh sweet Sagan, he named it.” Shiro hears Matt whisper to Pidge. Keith’s turning red next to him as he mouths off furiously.

 

“—I can look after myself, I’m not a _child_ anymore—”

 

Shiro’s forced to retaliate.

 

“—Look I’m not telling you to _quit_ or anything, but if you honestly think that it’s going to stay in one piece on your way back to campus—”

 

Colleen quells the budding noise around her with a single piercing stare and Shiro gulps because he can sense the irritation radiating off her in waves.

 

“All right, everyone. How about we finish dinner and _then_ we get back to the discuss—”

 

“Didn’t he name his cat Red as well?” Matt rambles on, blissfully unaware of his mother snapping around to give him a pointed stare.. “Someone give Keith a baby name book or something.”

 

Colleen smacks him lightly with a rolled up napkin atop his head and Matt whines. “Geez, ow. Okay. I’m stopping, I’m _stopping._ ”

 

“Good.” she says and exhales heavily through her nose. Sam chuckles lightly next to her. “Just finish your dinner for now and then take your _debate_ upstairs.”

 

 

* * *

 

**Keith, Friday, 8:18 pm, The Holts Residence**

 

He finds Shiro in the kitchen washing his plate, but completely perplexed because the soap dish is empty, so he’s squeezing the life out of it. Pidge is outside, hovering by the door—she won’t come in unless Keith calls for her and Matt’s tasked with keeping the kitchen free from his parents. At least for a little while, for this is what they’ve planned.

 

Well, Pidge and Matt had cooked this up, Keith had no idea for what Pidge had called him over until she finally tackled him after dinner and explained the situation.

 

It’s almost like an ambush.

 

Whether it was on him or Shiro was up to debate. Keith hates surprises, but this was unprecedented, he can't complain yet.

 

“You should wait for a little longer before you decide to go.” he says over the sound of running water.

 

Shiro starts and nearly drops his plate into the sink.

 

“Jesus, you need a bell around your neck or something.” he says, looking wide eyed. “Nearly sent me to an early grave.”

 

Keith gestures at Shiro’s white forelock, “I mean, you’re already old so I don’t have to do anything, let nature take its course.”

 

“I left my hair like that for the aesthetic,” Shiro frowns, tugging on it self-consciously and Keith rolls his eyes. “I’m not _old.”_ he mumbles and bumps Keith’s shoulder. “I’m just five years ahead of you.”

 

Keith shrugs, “Right,” he says non-committedly with a small smirk before falling silent again. He feels fidgety because Shiro just _blew_ over his statement.

 

Shiro puts his plate away and tenses for a moment, shoulders locking up near his ears; he’s on the defensive. “What?” he asks.

 

“What?” Keith parrots back. He keeps his pointed gaze steady and wait for Shiro to crack.

 

Shiro sighs, “I already told Pidge and Matt, I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ll be back at the Garrison in a couple of days if I can get this done,” he ducks his head and grips the sink, “I can’t leave my students hanging; Iverson’s already stretched thin plus I have my own thesis to work on—I _need_ to work with a sim for the data or else I'm screwed. If I stay here any longer I’m going to fall behind.” he gives Keith a sour look, “Is this why Pidge called you here? To stop me?”

 

Keith hands him a hand towel to dry off his hands and makes to move out of the kitchen, he can hear Pidge scurrying away. “Let’s take this to the deck.” he answers cryptically instead, waiting at the door for Shiro to follow through with him.

 

Cold air smacks him in the face and he hears Shiro stomp around a bit next to him, it’s barely autumn but the temperature reads like winter. He shivers in the chill.

 

It’s quieter here; no one can hear them. “Hear me out.” Keith pleads. “One, I’m pretty sure Iverson can just find another TA to sub in for a while.” he says, lifting up a finger. Shiro’s brows wrinkle up in distaste, “Oh, come off it. You can’t micromanage everything.”

 

He lifts a second finger, “Two, Pidge told me that Matt was ready to go pick up your stuff for you to work on in here in the meantime. Just finish off your outline and theory bits ‘till your fortnight’s up.”

 

“Matt won’t know what to bring back.”

 

“But _I_ will.” Keith counters, shifting over to lean lazily against a post and to get a closer look at Shiro’s face. He seems conflicted and Keith cheers silently, because this means he has a chance of changing Shiro’s mind. “You’ve been working on it for a year already which means that I’ve seen the files when we were back at the apartment. So, I’ll know what to pick up if I just go with him.” he lifts up a third finger, “Also, three. How on earth are you going to even get to campus everyday if your leg’s completely bummed out?”

 

Shiro freezes in place.

 

 _Gotcha,_ Keith crows.

 

“Uber’s exist.” Shiro says, tone smug despite the icy look he wears. Keith feels his grin curl in.

 

He drags a hand across his face and groans, “God, would it kill you to stop being so Type A about everything? Look, I—” he trails off because _this_ is what he was called here for, and he’d be damned if he knew how he was gonna do this right. “You’re—” he stammers.

 

“Use your words.” Shiro snarks, lips curling into a small smirk for barely a second before he seems to realise that he’s annoyed with Keith. “Why _exactly_ did Pidge call you here.”

 

Sighing, Keith pulls out his flip phone and opens up his files. “Because of this,” he says, and thrusts the screen under Shiro’s nose.

 

His voice is completely impassive when he says, “That screen literally has five working pixels on it. The hell am I supposed to be looking at?”

 

“Oh, shut up and _look_ ,” Keith says, feeling defensive. “This is a 0.3 MP flip and you’re not _blind_.”

 

“All right, all right,” Shiro gives in. “but if I’m not blind already, straining to look at this is going to send me halfway there.” He squints at the screen, and then cranes in closer before leaning back with a blank look. “I give up. What is this for?”

 

Keith purses his lips. “Those are screws.” he says, finally. “I took pictures of them when I dropped by Pidge’s clubroom a few days ago.”

 

Keith absolutely hate the way Shiro’s eyebrows quirk up towards his hairline when he mentions going to visit Pidge. “You voluntarily went out to meet people?” he says, unable to hide the shock in his voice.

 

“I’m not a hermit, I can go out if I think it’s necessary. Besides, it’s just Pidge, what’s so surprising about that?” Keith bites out before shaking his head and saying. “Listen, stop sidetracking me.”

  
  
“Of course,” Shiro says, “I suppose I’m just not used to you taking the initiative, usually you’re either invited to go out or I’m the one dragging you around the place. This is good.”

 

Keith grunts and waves off Shiro’s comment. “Right. Anyway, those screws were, er, were taken from your library after that shelf fell on you. ”

 

Shiro shrugs, “And this is important because … ”

 

“Well, none of us took them out, that’s for sure. It was suspicious.”

 

“Then give them to the cops.” Shiro says. He shakes his head before mumbling, “Why did Matt even think it was necessary to get them involved in the first place? It was just an accident.”

 

“Matt’s intentions were … right.” Keith says slowly. “The screws are still at the clubroom. Being … _tested.”_

 

“Right?” Shiro turns to look back at him so quickly that Keith almost feels the second hand whiplash. “Why are you guys even messing with evidence from the case in the first place?”

 

“The cops really can’t do anything about this.” Keith says, looking down at his hands. “Believe, me, I’d rather they deal with it then us, but this goes way over their heads.” He stops to regard Shiro with solemn eyes. “Now pay attention, I have to tell you something crucial, and you need to keep an open mind about this.”

 

“Geez, you’re kinda getting me all worried over here.” Shiro says, “But go on.”

  
  
“You ... you’re not gonna believe this, man.” Keith says.

 

“Try me.” the hint of a challenge in Shiro's voice irritates Keith.

 

He takes a deep breath. Looks Shiro dead in the eye.

 

Looks away, because he knows it'll take a miracle to get Shiro to believe him on the first try.

 

“You’re being haunted.” he says.

 

Short, simple. He’s not beating around the bush on this.

 

The silence stretches between them for few seconds, Keith’s all too aware of the crickets chirping noisily in the background and he can’t help but believe how ridiculously cartoonish this whole scenario is.

 

Shiro cracks. “Oh haha, good one. You got me there.” he says lamely. “I ... don’t know how to respond to this.”

 

“You’re not alone in that Manor, Shiro.” Keith says seriously. “Hell, I’m pretty sure that everything that’s been going wrong with you ever since you shifted in is because of of whatever’s roaming around the Manor.”

 

“Keith, you act like I haven’t seen you with your magazines, how is this any better than a cons-”

 

 _"I saw the damn thing with my own eyes!”_ Keith all but yells. “Look, you aren’t safe going back there. Pidge and Matt didn’t want to send you back because you’re clearly not ready to go hobnobbing around a place as big as the Manor but they _also_ think there’s a good chance you’re going to come out in a body bag!” He pushes his hair away from his face. “You see this?” he says angrily as his fading scar came into view. It was still pretty big and garish despite the respite it had gotten between his last trip to the Manor and now, “that _thing_ stuck its claw into me and gave this to me and it hurt like a bitch the whole time. It’s probably gonna be worse for you.” he ends on a ominous note.

 

“You told me that was a burn mark from the petro lab.” Shiro said.

 

“Since when did burn marks turn purple? Dammit, Shiro, this was before you decided to get all stupid and take matters into your own hands. The less people know, the better.” says Keith. “Just don’t go back, okay? At least for a while. Pidge knows how to stop this.”

 

“This conversation’s been wild from start to finish.” Shiro says calmly.

 

“Are you going to go back?” Keith asks with a hard glare, and sinks down onto a plush deck chair. He rubs at his eyes and growls in frustration.

 

Shiro shakes his head. “Look, I want to believe you, but you have to admit that even if it is true, it’s a lot for a single person to take in.”

 

“I have no reason to make this up, Shiro.” Keith says.

 

Shiro sighs and leans back to give Keith a long look. “And I know that. But, do you remember? That time when you told me about your father-”

  
  
Keith nearly jumps out of his seat and slams his hand over Shiro’s mouth. “I thought we agreed to not bring that up again.” he hisses and scans the area for any potential eavesdroppers. “Look, I don’t care if you don’t want to believe that, but I have Pidge and Matt to back me up on _this_ one. I can bring them here if you want. What do you need from us to convince you?”

 

Keith peels his hand back and shivers once again in the cold air, although he’s distracted now that Shiro’s brought up his father. But no, he shakes his head. He can’t dwell on the past when there are more pressing issues to tend to at hand.

 

“How is Pidge and Matt supposed to help with this?” Shiro asks at last.

 

“I dunno about Matt, but Pidge? That club of hers? Yeah, well it's not for research, it's a proxy they use to investigate hauntings and get rid of spirits instead.”

 

“So Pidge leads a double life, huh? Aerodynamic by day, ectoplasm by night?” Shiro grins.

 

“Something like that. It’s not funny! Stop laughing!” Keith kicks at his foot as Shiro’s grin gets wider. He stops and pins Shiro with a pointed stare. “Look just consider the facts,” he says and starts counting again. “You keep finding your windows and doors open at random times and you frequently find your possessions in random spots. We both know you’re more meticulous than that. Then, uh, you said it gets cold unexpectedly, right? _That’s_ a ghost thing. And don’t get me started on the sudden noises you’ve been hearing.”

 

Shiro ponders over this for a while, “They might not be, ugh, _ghosts_ , though.” he says. "Ever watch Scooby-Doo?" But he looks like he might be coming around. At least halfway; Keith’s hopeful.

 

“Yeah, cause people in bedsheets randomly sneak into the Manor to turn down the thermostat.” Keith deadpans. “Look alive, man.”

 

Shiro rolls his eyes at that but then asks, “Who else goes to this club?”

 

“Hunk Garrett, and that loudmouth, the McClain guy.”

 

“Lance?” Shiro raises an eyebrow at that. “Hmm.”

 

Keith suddenly feels uncomfortable. “What’s that look for?” he demands.

 

“Nothing important.” Shiro says with a cheeky grin. “You’re just—always somehow roped into stuff whenever he’s around.”

  
  
“I call _bull.”_ Keith says hotly, and weirdly enough, he feels the back of his neck turn warm. “What’s that even mean?”

 

“Like I said, nothing.” Shiro says, “But just know that we keep a tally at the TA lounge for the squabbles you two keep getting into.”

 

“You can’t be serious.” Keith nearly groans into his hands. Stupid Lance. Stupid TAs.

  
  
“I mean as long as you two don’t disrupt class no one bothers, but you just seem to uh,” Shiro makes a complicated gesture with his hands, “have this very obvious conflict or something going on. We’ve all noticed.”

 

“S’not my fault though. He always starts it.”

 

“ _Sure_.”

 

Keith frowns but suddenly jumps back up again. “You tried to sidetrack once more!” he says and waves an accusatory finger at Shiro. “Stop that.”

 

Shiro seems to give up, and now he just looks tired. “All right. I won’t go back to the Manor-"

 

“Excellent.”

 

“—for a while. I’m still on the fence about it. I still don’t think ghosts are behind anything.”

  
  
“Look as long as you aren’t being stupid, I don’t care.” Keith says, this was the bare minimum he was getting but he could work with it. “Just _stay away from there until we give you the go ahead._ ”

 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you lot to go crawling around the place if you decided it’s unsafe for me, however. What sort of hypocrisy is that.”

 

“You’re the target,” Keith says firmly. “That’s why you’re a no-go. Besides, we’re not gonna crawl around. We’ll walk right in.”

 

“Good god.” says Shiro.

 

 

 

 

An hour later, Keith bids the Holt’s farewell, and makes his way out to his bike. He gets held up at the door, for Pidge stands in the hallway with a sleeping bag and a bunch of assorted paraphernalia scattered around her, tucked away in a mass of colourful tote bags.

 

“I’m going over to the Garrison myself,” she says. “Have a group project to finish off so I’m just staying over at the dorms with some friends.”

 

“Cool.” Keith says and bends down to helps her with the bags. "Didn't know you had those." he says with a sly grin, Pidge knocks into him with one of her massive duffle bags. He wheezes but lets it go. There's only so much that she'd let him get away with.

 

“Also, Shiro told me to drive you back.” she huffs.

 

“That’s not happening.” Keith rolls his eyes at her.

 

“Too bad, too late; I have your keys hostage.” Pidge says with a sly smile. Keith stops in shock and when he looks up at her, she twirling his set around a finger.

 

“How”—he starts and pats his himself down, just in case Pidge was messing with him but his pockets turn up empty—“Give them back!”

 

“Shiro promised me early access to the Stardeck next week. I wanted to mess with the Nav system, and he’s my best shot at getting into it. Sorry.”

 

She doesn’t look sorry at all, the twerp.

 

She’s already in the driver’s seat and toots the horn a couple of times before rolling down the window and yelling, “Get in loser, we’re going shopping.”

 

Keith’s forced to comply. But he’s not going to do it without going down kicking and screaming.

 

 

 

 

So, they don’t go shopping, naturally, this is PIdge we’re talking about. She prefers to buy everything off the dark web (and Amazon). But it turns out that they’re not driving back to the dorms either.

 

“Hey, shouldn't we have taken that last left?” Keith asks looking behind them, there's a sign that clearly reads _Galaxy Garrison_ , but Pidge had forgone it.

 

Her glasses flash under the moonlight. “Nope.” she says.

 

He glances down at the GPS on the dashboard. From what he can make out, they’ve gone five miles off course and it looks like Pidge has no intention of stopping.

 

“Pidge.” he says once more, feeling more confused than anything. “Hey, hey.”

 

“Don’t distract me or we’ll really get lost.” she says shortly.

 

“Wait, so we’re really not going back to the Garrison?”

 

“ _No_. Keith, hush. We gonna reach in a couple of minutes and I always miss this turn.”

 

Keith’s torn between flipping out or just giving in. “This is basically an abduction!” he cries out. “Pidge, where are we?”

 

She just sighs in response and pulls into a driveway. Whatever Keith was going to say next remains a mystery because he's been shocked into silence.

 

This house could easily be thrice as big as Shiro’s damned manor.

 

“Pidge,” Keith whispers, somehow finding himself unable to go any louder, “Pidge. What the fuck?”

 

She parks right in front of the entrance and kicks him out of her buggy. There’s a Jeep in front of her, and it’s not empty. Two shadowy figures are unloading a bulky piece of tarped equipment from the back while a third stands a little way away, closer to him and Pidge and supervises.

 

He recognises the tall, lanky figure first. “What’s _he_ doing here?” he says under his breath to Pidge. The other two figures suddenly click. It’s Hunk and Allura.

 

“What are _they_ doing here?” he says again.

 

Allura, apparently, hears him and looks up. _She has those pointy-like ears,_ Keith reasons. _Sharp._

 

“Oh, Keith!” she says in surprise and walks up to their parked car. “I’m so glad you could make it, Pidge was telling us that you’d be here.”

 

“Did she?” he says drily as he turns towards her. He can feel someone staring intently at him, eyes boring into the back of his skull, but when he turns around, all he sees is Hunk and Lance, although Hunk’s fussing intently over his machine and Lance is pointedly looking for something on the floor. Well then.

 

He turns back to Allura, mentally apologising for getting distracted. “I never got the memo.”

  
  
He gets kick to the back of his knee for that and buckles down. He scowls up at Pidge who looks on with an exasperated glare. “I literally texted you to get ready for today!” she says.

 

“Oh, that.” he says, thinking back a couple of days when he marked his calendar with something other than a circle for for his father for the first time ever. “I wasn’t going to come, though.” he says, covering up nonchalantly.

 

“Oh and that’s why you came over to my place with a chain link belt, huh?” Pidge says scornfully, “You’re pretty transparent, dude. You only wear that one worn out fanny pack and nothing else. You can’t fool me.”

 

“What if I had just wanted to just expand my wardrobe? Huh.”

 

Pidge smirks at him and Keith knows he’s done for. “Oh, I was hoping you’d try to deny that because then I can do this,” she pulls out a collapsible metal pole from her bag and tosses it to him. “Recognise this?”

 

“Did you go through Red’s hatch?” Keith asks incredulously. “What—”

 

“I have your keys, stupid.” Pidge says again. “But anyways, that’s solid proof, I believe. You came prepared and then pretended it was nothing when you realised I hadn’t called you in for that.”

 

She gives him a sly grin before taking off towards Allura, “But good job on the prep!”

 

* * *

 

**Lance, Friday, 9:02 pm, the Altean Mansion**

 

It’s weird.

 

Dealing with Keith outside the Garrison is _weird_.

 

It’s like everything he knows has been stripped away from him, Lance still insists on holding on to his petty rivalry but now that they’re miles away from a simulator it all feels rather trivial. It’s quite the dilemma.

 

The second Allura had noticed Keith, she looked at Lance and hissed, “Now behave yourselves,” in the sternest voice possible and Lance felt himself flush in embarrassment. He _really_ didn’t like being reminded that he was honestly just an overgrown baby.

 

He makes up his mind that he's going to be perfectly cordial with Keith. No teasing, no hitting below the belt, and if he squints hard enough and then maybe closes both his eyes, he can pretend that Keith's mullet didn't exist and then he wouldn't be obligated to comment on it like he normally would have.

 

Yeah, he can do this. He’d be the bigger man.

 

“Hey.” says Keith, looking a little sullen. Lance tries to believe that his prominent frown was because of Pidge’s little prank and not because he was looking right at Lance.

 

 _Quick, quick, he's waiting for an answer. He_ is _, isn't he?_ Lance sneaks a peek from under his lashes, still under the guise that he found the gravel and dirt under his feet absolutely riveting and is desperately _not_ trying to stare hard at Keith—he opens his mouth to speak, because Keith’s still waiting for him to say something even though Hunk has already greeted him on behalf of the two of them. _What do I do?_

 

“Geh.” he says. Hunk gives him a pitiful look.

 

Keith's lips twist into a frown, he's perplexed. Sad, perhaps? Nah. He's confused. Lance doesn't know, but he sags in relief when Keith turns away to greet Allura with the same monotonous, somewhat grudging tone he'd used on Hunk and himself, only sparing Lance one last glance before moving inside. For some inexplicable reason, this vindicates Lance.

 

At his side, Hunk mutters, “Geh.”

 

“Shut it, you.” Lance mutters back.

 

Hunk just rolls his eyes at him, “What was that even about?”

 

Lance isn't sure, but he thinks he has a reason. “My mother always said that ‘If you have nothing nice to say, then say nothing at all.’”

 

“But you _said_ _‘geh.’”_

 

“I’m gonna let the spooks get you tonight,” Lance grumbles as he nudges past Hunk to go up the stairs and into the foyer. “Then you get as cocky as you want.”

 

“A simple ‘hi’ would have sufficed!”

 

 

 

 

“So, uh. Is this supposed to be the haunted house?” Keith asks.

 

“Nah, we just always meet up here before a jaunt.” Hunk replies. "This is the Prez's house." he chuckles at Keith's awed expression.

 

The gang (plus Keith now, Lance begrudgingly admits) repose in their usual common room. The bags have been hauled onto the low table in the centre of the room and Hunk and Lance slowly start undoing all the clasps on each bag.

 

Keith comes up to help, unsure of what to do, but Lance freezes because he’s on his side of the table and kinda ...  _close_.

 

 _Just go to Hunk already,_ Lance wants to say.

 

Keith honestly has no concept of personal space. “I got my chain belt, but you guys seem to have solid loops?” He asks conversationally before stretching a hand out in front of Lance and leaning in to grab a canister of salt. “You use these as well?” He says looking mystified. Lance shivers and takes a step back. “Isn’t it a lot?” he adds, seemingly not bothered at all that Lance isn’t answering him and nodding at the rest of the various paraphilia in front of him; A tank, a bunch of thermometers and candles; a multitude of sage sprays, rods, iron nets, and even a silver rosary. There’s more junk under the bags as well.

 

Lance’s hand inches towards a wrapped piece of chocolate, mulling over his response, but then it gets slapped away. Allura’s frowning at him and he shoots her a cheeky smile.

 

“Well, I’d rather the team be, ah, overprepared and bulky than say, unprepared and _dead_.” Allura says solemnly from his side. To Lance she frowns and says, “Don’t go eating up all of our replenishments.

 

Lance shrugs and grabs the chocolate he was forced to drop moments ago from right under Allura’s nose and pops it into his mouth. “Right after this.” he says, mirth dancing in his eyes. She huffs and turns away.

 

“What are we waiting for?” Keith asks. “Everyone’s here, right?

 

“Keith, Keith, _Keith.”_ Lance says, “We have to check over everything. Make sure the lids aren’t stuck, the links are oiled ... if the chocolate’s restocked ... _I_ personally need my sugar.” he finishes with a wink and then regrets it immediately. Keith looks at him with wide eyes, but Lance runs his mouth again before anyone has a chance to pick apart his stupid flirting. “C’mon, Hunk ‘n I can show you the goods while the girls set up the screens.” he points to a couple of compact laptops that are lying on the table next to the salt.

 

 _Stop it,_ he sternly tells himself and leans away from Keith.

 

They grab Hunk and set off to check their supplies. They pull out the salt cans, the sage sprays and set them across from the iron nets, rods and the chain links. Across from Hunk, Keith and Lance, Allura’s curled up on a low sofa, frowning as she taps belligerently into her palmtop.

 

“First we check stock, then we do maintenance.” Lance says as he divvies up the tasks between the three of them. They dive into the sorting with a single minded sort of focus.

 

A painting hangs over the table, and Lance notices that Keith’s spending more time staring at it instead of hunting for and keeping count of the salt canisters (eight, there should be eight)

 

“Who is that?” Keith asks when Lance prods him irritably.

 

He jerks his chin over at the painting of a younger Allura and her father. It’s done in oils, but instead of the associated stiffness you’d expect from a stuffy painting, the two were locked in a joyous embrace, Allura throwing her head back and laughing up at the sky while her father twirls her around in his arms, his eyes fixed fondly on his daughter.

 

“That’s Alfor. Allura’s father.” Lance says. “Dude, they literally have the same hair.” he adds snidely.

 

“Does he know we’re using his house as a base for, uh, ghost ops?” Keith’s voice drops to a whisper. Fair question, Lance thinks, they weren’t really hiding anything, and they were pretty noisy.

 

But before Lance can reply, Allura steps in.

 

“My father,” she says softly, “is ... dead.”

 

Keith pales and he stumbles over an apology. “I-I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—”

 

“It’s all right,” she says simply. She looks at him with a dull smile, but there’s a hidden strength bubbling out of her. Lance can see it, but Keith’s silently panicking by his side. “It wasn’t too long ago, but I’ve made my peace with what happend. But the Manor has always been the first base for the club”

 

Keith looks at the painting once again, “It’s a nice painting.” he says. He looks desperate to change the direction of where this conversation is heading. It doesn’t matter because Allura eventually takes matters into her own hands.

 

“Yeah.” she suddenly says, with a too large smile that sits awkwardly on her face. Her palmtop beeps and she turns to Pidge. “I think it’s ready for the EMT,” she calls out to her and Pidge gives her a thumbs up. Turning back to Keith and Lance with a slightly more relaxed look, she says, “Gotta go, you lot finish up here.” before running across the room towards Pidge.

 

Keith nudges Lance and says in a low voice, “How does Allura work with you three?” he asks. “I thought she couldn’t sense spirits.”

 

“She doesn’t,” Hunk says from across the table. He shrugs apologetically when Keith looks at him, “Your whispering isn’t really, er, whispering.”

 

Keith frowns and Hunk laughs, “Sorry, sorry. Allura just runs the club with Coran. He’s her uncle and guardian.”

  
  
“I _guess_ that makes sense?”

 

“Coran was also a part of the club when he attended the Garrison. It’s been running for awhile now.”

 

Keith’s face clears up, “Oh, now that definitely makes sense. I didn’t know Coran was sensitive as well.”

 

“He and Alfor actually founded the club.” says Hunk, “Allura can’t do the stuff they did, but she’s pretty well versed in the lore. Knows her way around a sage spray.”

 

Keith hangs his head, “I didn’t mean to, y’know, poke at holes or anything. I had no idea.” he says in a miserable voice. He looks across at Allura with what Lance can only call empathy in his head and he doesn’t hesitate to try and reassure Keith.

 

“It’s all right,” he says. “Allura knows.” Not a very good attempt, but he tried.

 

“Yeah, don’t beat yourself up about it. I suppose just been a while since we’ve spoken about Alfor,” he says pedantically, “especially when you consider, y’know, what happened—” he blanches and gives Keith an apologetic smile, “Oh wait, _shit._ ” he looks nervously around him. “Sorry, I got ahead of myself.”

 

“What?” Keith asks, brows wrinkling in consternation.

 

“Nothing, it’s nothing.” Hunk says, “Just rambling. Anyhow, I, er, need to check if my tank’s filled up. Be right back.”

 

He leaves just as abruptly as he had come.

 

Keith turns to Lance, “I thought we were taking Allura’s Jeep to the site.” he says drily.

 

Lance just shrugs in response.

 

* * *

 

**Keith, Friday, 10:20 pm, 42H, Lilith Avenue**

 

It’s a quarter past eleven when they reach their destination. Keith feels gravel crunch under his worn out sneakers as he slides out of the Jeep. He’d spent the duration of the ride trapped between Hunk and Lance. Pidge called shotgun and there was no way getting around her, not when she used her bitten up nails are her first line of defense if you tried to dislodge her.

 

He’s still stuck on the last conversation he had had with Hunk and Lance. Why had Hunk stopped halfway through his words and what had happened to Alfor? It was clear that was what he had been about to tell him. Hunk was still nervous from his slip-up and any conversation that Keith had tried to initiate fell apart quickly.

 

Lance, on the other hand, was silent as well. Keith hadn’t been inclined to talk to him. Not yet, at least. The guy had been a thrumming ball of energy the whole ride through and Keith had to forcibly restrain himself from elbowing him in the side to stop him from vibrating out of the car. He had accidentally knocked shoulders with Lance in the middle of their drive and the boy jerked upright so quickly, he’d nearly hit his head against the roof and _then_ he had the gall to give Keith his most fiercest glare yet. There was definitely something off about him; Keith didn’t know if he wanted to prod any further, but it was suffice to say that it stung a bit. Sure, he wouldn't say that they were even close to being friends. He wouldn't say that for anyone in the apart from Pidge and maybe Allura to an extent, but the glares and the uneasiness. Lance being so fucking _weird_ around him all the time. It just confused Keith to no end.

 

Keith decides that he'll deal with that later. And he has to, if he wants to stay on with the team. If he can find a way to communicate with his father with their help. He'll have to make nice with Lance eventually, this can't go on for much longer.

 

They’re all out and unloading the bags from the back. Allura stays behind the wheel—she has a travel pillow clipped around her neck and a book and pen lamp in her arms.

  
“Count your bags, and keep the comms ready.” she says. “Good luck.”

 

Keith wants to ask someone if the thinly veiled anxiety in her eyes was because of the unfortunate conversation they’d fallen into or if it was the norm. Either way, whatever answer he’d get would be bad.

 

“Yes, ma’am.” says Pidge with a cheeky grin.

 

They turn to face the decrepit bungalow behind them. It looks small, with two bedrooms max, a peeling porch front and a dimly lit doorway.

 

He finds himself leaning in to talk to the person closest to him: Lance, and whispers softly into his ear. “This place is so small, do we really even need half of the supplies?” He doesn’t get an answer, Lance nearly jumps of out his skin with a muffled yell and Keith feels bad for sneaking up on him.

 

Not that he’d meant to. He eyes the skittish figure besides him but before he can take the chance to ask Lance if everything is all right, Hunk unwittingly cuts him off.

 

“I assume we’ve all read the files,” he asks, shifting the strap of his carry-on across his shoulders. Pidge gives him an uncommited nod, Lance looks away but gives him a thumbs up. “Keith’s exempt, of course.” he continues.

 

“I never said I wanted to be here.” Keith retorts sullenly.

 

“You could just wait in the car if you’re so against it.” Lance finally says in a light voice, the wild look in his eyes still puzzling Keith.

 

Keith side eyes the lanky dude. _Was that a challenge?_

 

“Too late now.” he says, squaring up his shoulders.

 

Lance beams at him, it nearly gives Keith a whiplash. His ever shifting moods, especially around him, were confounding. He just couldn't keep up. “Great,” he pulls out a rod that was strapped to his back, he has two more left behind—one’s presumably for himself—but Keith finds himself on his toes because barely a moment later, he hears Lance cry “Think fast!” and the rod comes flying at his face.

 

He catches it by the skin of his teeth, fingertips barely grazing the surface before his hands find purchase to stop it form ramming into his face. “What the fuck, Lance?” he growls. Behind him, Pidge and Hunk roll their eyes at the two of them.

 

“Stay alert, rookie.” Lance snarks, "That pole you had on you earlier was pretty damn laughable, aluminum passes through ghosts like butter." Keith wonders where his more affable persona suddenly went.

 

Feeling a lot more irritable than he was just mere seconds ago, Keith shakes his head. Honestly, what was he even doing here? He curls a lip at Lance and pushes past him, to rest a hand on the doorknob.

 

“Wait!”

 

He looks behind him. Pidge and Hunk are hot on his heels, Lance hangs back a bit, eyes not meeting his but an excitable energy radiates off all of them.

 

Pidge pulls out a set of keys from her bottomless pockets. “How on earth do you think you were gonna get in, eh, hot shot?” she says, shaking her head.

 

Next to her, Hunk gives him a grin. “Don’t hesitate on the threshold for too long.” he says. “The miasma sets in quickly, ghosts are a lot more powerful in the night. Linger too long and they sap out all the willpower outta you.”

 

“Just walk right in,” Lance mumbles behind them. “And don’t look back.”

 

They do just that.

 

The door slams shut behind them, plunging them into utter darkness. Hunk pulls out one of the compass thermometers, its dial glows eerily in the dark. “Heater’s off, right?”

 

“Seems like it.” says Pidge. They move in a bit, Keith can hear everyone quietly exploring the space around them. Slowly enough, his eyes start to adjust to the darkness and he’s able to make out rough shapes around him.

 

“Electricity’s cut.” Lance says in a pleased voice, bounding towards the group. “Good. Pidge what’s our time like?”

 

“Half past ten,” she replies.

 

“Right, let’s set up a base before midnight then. C’mon.”

 

He senses Hunk digging around in his pack, before he pulls out with a triumphant grunt and hands out three more glowing thermometers to the crew.

 

When Hunk hands him his own piece, he stops to bring him up to speed. “We should be good if we set up before twelve, that’s when things get more, ah,  _interesting_.” He says with a smile. “Right now, we’re mapping out the warmest rooms in the house. Those are usually unaffected by spirits. We can set up there. It won’t take long if we all split up for a couple of minutes.”

 

Keith looks at him skeptically, “That a good idea?” he asks.

 

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t be careful nor should you _ever_ let go of your rod”—he nods at the pole in Keith’s hands—”but we’ve just entered. It’ll take them a few minutes to react to our presence. They’re never gone, just, ah, _lurking_.”

 

“Okay, then.” Pidge says, halting everyone in their tracks. “Hunk and I are doing the first floor,” she looks at Keith and Lance, her gaze lingering a little longer on Lance who’s staring back just as hard at her. There’s some sort of non-verbal communication going on there, but Keith can’t make out what it is. “You two, get the second floor.”

 

Keith mentally curses his luck, as it is, he feels like he’s going in blind despite the ridiculous amount of data Pidge and Hunk have dropped on him in the past few days—and now he’s paired up with Lance? Aw man, give him a break.

 

Lance just sighs dejectedly and Keith doesn’t know what to do with that. “Leggo,” he says, pulling on the metal chain draped around his shoulders. The rods fixed to his back stuck over his head like a sword. “You have your stuff, right?”

 

“Uh, yeah.”

 

“Good.” and he makes his way up a rickety staircase without another word, hands tight around the railing in case he slips.

 

Keith follows suit.

 

They walk up in silence until they halt the the landing at the top.

 

“Er, how about you take the left. I’ll go right?” Lance says. “You just have to check the linen closet and one bathroom. I’ll grab the bedrooms, sounds good?”

 

Keith appreciates the sentiment. Lance seemed more likely to encounter a spirit in one of the bigger rooms, not that Keith didn’t think he couldn’t take one on. He just doesn’t completely know what to expect. He nods and gives Lance a curt ‘yes’, before they both turn on their heel and move out along the long corridor. Before Lance disappears completely into the dark however, he turns back and calls out to Keith.

 

“Listen,” he says. Keith can’t really see his face all that well but he hears Lance clear his throat and sees his teeth flash dimly at him. “Stay alert and keep your rod at hand. If you see or feel _anything_ get out of there at once otherwise Shiro’s gonna kill me if I bring you back in a body bag tomorrow.”

 

Keith nods and turns, “Yeah, you too, I guess.”

 

“Hey, I’m not the rookie here.” Lance sounds lighter than he has all evening.

 

Keith smiles and walks into the bathroom.

 

 

 

 

The bathroom had been around the same temperature as it was outside the house—mid range fifties, well in with the autumnal weather.

 

According to Hunk, it was best to check each corner and then the centre of every room Keith visited. The bathroom was small, as was the closet, so Keith only takes two readings each before concluding that the closet was closer to whatever they were looking for after it had settled two degrees lower than the bathroom. Still, he doesn’t feel any different, so he mentally ticks off the two spots in his head.

 

He slides back out into the corridor to wait for Lance. He can hear him moving in one of the rooms so he settles back against the wall with his rod at the ready.

 

A couple of minutes pass and he starts to feel the thermometer in his back pocket dig uncomfortably into his flesh. With a sigh, he pulls it out to switch it into his pack, but then he catches sight of the number the dial is on and freezes.

 

From his last reading at fifty-three degrees, the temperature has dropped by another five degrees, capping off at forty-eight degrees. Keith suddenly feels like zipping up his coat.

 

_Well then._

 

He’s bang in the middle of the corridor, but he sees no ghost. There aren’t any doors in the vicinity, just a couple of skinny bookshelves that overflow with heavy tomes and a few ill-placed succulents. Lance is still puttering around in the second bedroom, so Keith decides to take a gander around him.

  

He contemplates moving the bookshelves, perhaps there’s an enclave or a door behind one of them with a ghost? Keith’s not sure what to look for. A source, most likely.

 

Next, he tries tapping lightly at the walls, a boarded up room was a vague probability here, but alas, the panelling sounds the same regardless of where he places his hands.

 

His leans back against the wall, head bumping against the stuccoed panelling and looks up.

 

Then he sees it.

 

A hatch in the ceiling.

 

Keith smirks.

 

“ _Gotcha_.”

 

The ceiling’s out of his reach, so he does the next best thing and levels himself by lightly kicking off the first rung on the bookshelf opposite the hatch and makes a grab for its handle, He swings down lightly, a narrow ladder unravelling as he lands softly on the carpet-covered floor.

 

If anything, the entrance, to what Keith now presumes is an attic, is the darkest thing in the house, he can’t see anything beyond the last rung. Everything gets eaten away into an inky darkness.

 

It doesn’t phase him one bit, he’s just going in to take a reading, isn’t he? He checks time on his phone and the screen flickers wildly as it lights up the space around him—he almost considers _thinking_ of replacing it newer model, it’s definitely on its last legs.

 

Anyway. He still has an hour until midnight. This would only take a minute and Lance would probably even be done by then.

 

He stifles a yawn and blinks slowly, cursing the darkness for lulling him into his current drowsy state. It had been pulling at him while he was waiting—a stretch would do him some good.

 

Once the ladder's secured, he jostles it lightly to test it—just in case it was inclined to slip any time soon.

 

It’s not.

 

Keith places a foot on the first rung and hoists himself up a couple of feet but he nearly doesn’t make it because all at once a chill spreads through him and he almost slips off the ladder. For a hot second he considers going back down because clearly their ghost was up there.

 

 _Waiting_.

 

He doesn’t get a chance to make that decision, however. He hears a yell that startles him out of his thoughts and suddenly there’s a rod slicing through the air, clipping past the top of his head neatly in an arc, not touching, but still close enough to almost feel it. It lands far past him, he hears it clatter to the floor.

 

Calloused hands grab at him to pull him off the ladder and he goes crashing into the wall with his assailant. Out of the corner of his eye he sees an incredibly bright streak of cold blue light dash past him and towards the bedrooms, but whatever it is gets obscured by the body that crouches in front of him, a chain whipping around sharply in front of him in one hand and a second rod held up straight in the other.

 

“It’s gone.” he tells the figure. It's Lance. Of course it is.

 

His throat feels funny. Closed up almost. But his drowsiness has abated. 

 

“ _What the_  hell _were you thinking?”_ Lance hisses after letting a heavy beat hang in between both of them. “I literally _just_ told you not to go off and get yourself killed!”

 

They’re both tangled up uncomfortably and panting heavily. Keith pushes off Lance to dust himself off and then returns his hand to offer Lance some support. He gets denied.

 

Lance brushes past him and peers up at the open hatch, “It feels like the damn Antarctic over here. _How_ did you miss this?”

  
  
Keith scowls, miffed at the reception he’s getting. “I thought Hunk said that they only came out after midnight.”

 

“Hunk said that it _could_ turn into a shit show after twelve. Here's a tip, ghosts don’t have _curfews_ , they’re around you _all_. _The._ _Damn_. _Time_. God, you’re so careless.”

 

“Well. I guess I should say thanks for saving my ass, then.” Keith mutters angrily, lips curling back in a sneer and reacting to Lance’s wrath with some of his own.

 

“Yeah, maybe you should.”

 

They stare at each other, daring the other to say something,  _anything._  Just one more word so they could snap.

 

The floorboards creak in the direction of the bedrooms. 

 

“Ugh.” they both say, before getting up and running down the stairs like their lives depended on it. The the door to the bedroom the spirit had slipped into slams shut behind them, prompting them to go faster. They jump the last few stairs.

 

Pidge meets them at the end of the staircase.

 

“Found anything?’ she asks, eyebrows raised into something akin to mild curiosity. Keith realises that this level of chaos seems to be the norm.

 

“Fuck.” he says in dismay.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck I hate deadlines. Sorry y'all, I'm running on gatorade.
> 
> Wow, Lance is really running on pure adrenaline alone in this chapter. He has NO IDEA how to deal with Keith.  
> (Press F to pay respects)
> 
> Also this what a [Norton Nemesis](http://www.motorstown.com/images/norton-nemesis-05.jpg) looks like, it's the ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life and I like bikes so, right now, I'm kin with Shiro and we're both gonna rag that damn bike.
> 
> Rate and Review! Leave a kudos or a comment, I appreciate all of you!
> 
> (Chapter title is from Thriller by MJ!)
> 
> (Also, sorry if anyone got double notifications! I accidentally deleted the chapter and had to re-upload it bec I'm an idiot)
> 
> Finally, I just wanted to say that I know a lot of y'all felt like S7 killed y'all (for multiple reasons), and personally I enjoyed a lot of it but there are some parts I have blocked out from mind, lmao. S8 is just around the corner and honestly, I don't believe that this was the end for Klance at least. The other issues, I will not get into here or at any other point. But I'm just saying, stick it out, what do y'all have to lose? And regardless of what happens, kl is good in canon AND fanon


	7. See The White Light Flashing as I Split the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance start...talking.

**LANCE, Friday, 10:51 pm, 42H, Lilith Avenue**

 

“So, you’re saying that you let Keith, our _rookie_ , go it _alone_?”

 

Shadows dance menacingly across Hunk's face from the light of a candle held under his chin. He’s furious. Even more so than Lance, who had mentally kicked himself when he realised that he nearly let Keith walk right into trouble.

 

Although, this wasn’t _entirely_ his fault.

 

Lance spares Keith a quick glance, he doesn't seem all that pleased to be the topic of this conversation, his brows are furrowed and his body is twisted away from the little congregation in the center of the room. He had gone ahead and yelled at him for nothing anyway. Lance was lucky Keith didn’t let his misplaced anger get to him or something. God _no,_ he had fought back with as much fervour, and now the two are standing in opposite corners of the dinky little kitchen they’re holding conference in, stewing in the middle of their own tempers and occasionally exchanging heated glares while Hunk takes his time to thoroughly scold Lance.

 

If he felt the slightest twinge of guilt start to nibble at him—he _didn’t—_ he was ignoring it.

 

“He not a rookie,” says Lance. “and he’s not staying.” If Keith nods his head in agreement with him ( _finally)_ he pretends he doesn’t see anything.

 

“Ooh, _you_ ,” Hunk shakes a finger right in front of Lance’s nose, making him go cross eyed as he tries to focus on it. “If Allura finds out about this, it won’t matter how good you are right now with the team ‘cause we’d be _exorcising_ you soon enough.” He huffs, his part almost done, and slumps against the table with a long exhale. “Didn't you remember anything from the case file?” He grouses.

 

Lance looks at him blankly. _Uh oh,_ he thinks, eyebrows disappearing into his hairline just as it all clicks for Hunk.

 

“You are a walking _hazard_.” He concludes evenly, after fixing him with a pointed glare. Lance tries to go for a cheeky but apologetic grin (turn on the charm and all that) but Hunk’s having none of it. “I apologise for him,” Hunk says to Keith with a shake of his head. Lance can’t help but sneer at Keith from across the table. Keith looks at him with wide eyes before scowling at him and then turning away completely.

 

Pidge picks up the manilla folder on the table in front of him, the tension in the room completely going over her head. If anything, she’s probably all too aware of it but had decided that studiously ignoring it was her best bet. “You mean this file?” she says.

 

“Why are you even asking? Of _course_ , it is.” Hunk freezes and then wilts like a dying flower. He groans. “Don’t tell me _you_ didn’t read it as well.”

 

Pidge shrugs and Hunk groans into his sleeve. “If it helps, _I_ gave you the data we needed,” she says simply. “I know _some_ of it.” She draws out her O, and Hunk’s head shakes morosely in this hands.

 

“You lot sure make a cohesive team.” Keith snarks from his corner. He looks at Lance and tosses him a smug grin as if to say ‘ _How are you three even alive if this is how you deal with everything?_ ‘

 

He’s probably reading too much into this, but Lance feels himself get up from the table and round his way over to Keith. Just to talk—nothing _else_ , and certainly not because he wanted to deck him, but Hunk stops him with a unyielding hand on his shoulder. “Down, boy,” he says. Keith's grin slips off his face at Lance's irate expression, his brows dip when he notices Lance's posture. _Well, obviously, if you're going to stir the pot._

 

“Oh, should I bark and roll over as well,” Lance says with a defeated sigh when it becomes clear that Hunk isn’t letting him out of his seat anytime soon. “Wag my tail? Sing for my supper?”

 

Pidge pinches the bridge of her nose and sinks into her seat. “ _Christ_ , quit your harping for a second,” she says. “Your bad juju’s gonna get all the spooks out from the attic and into the kitchen.

 

Hunk cuffs him affectionatley around the head. “Yeah, quit being so melodramatic.”

 

“You literally started this, et tu, Brutus?” Lance says, looking outraged.

 

Hunk pretends he doesn’t hear Lance. “ _Anyway,_ after this display of gross negligence-” he ducks Lance’s hands as they flap around his face to swat at him, ”-I think we need to reiterate before we make another move."

 

“ _You_ , you mean,” says Pidge. “You’re the only one who knows exactly what’s in that file.”

 

He scowls at her. “Ugh, fine.”

 

The files usually have a coded sticker that Hunk tacks on the cover for each mission with a brief description of what their client reported because in the event that no one reads them (re:all the time) then at least they know what they should expect: A green dot for a Type One, yellow for a Type Two and a red for a Type Three. They’ve never seen red on the files before.

 

But he’s never left it blank either. Until today.

 

“Hey, Hunk,” Lance feels a little confused. Not apprehensive, however. Curiosity and adrenaline start to course through him. This was what he loved about this whole job. The _unknown_. “Do we have any idea what we’re up against?” he says, his eyes brighten at the prospect.

 

Hunk looks perplexed. He glances down at the file. At this point Keith’s also made his way to hover around the table. All four of them lean over the file, and Lance brings the candle stand closer to light up the space between them. “I talked to Mrs. D’cunha last week and her daughter as well. She had the run in with the spirit, but I couldn’t piece together a type! Her descriptions matched nothing we’ve faced before,” he gives the flie an annoyed glance and shakes it lightly. “I can’t figure out what’s going on.”

 

He moves on, slipping out a smaller envelope from the file and pulling out evidence photos. A hastily scribbled note—it’s Hunk’s handwriting—falls out as well, he must have taken these over the phone.

 

The first picture that they look at is a recent family picture. The mother and father smile sunnily at the camera while the daughter—who looks to be around seventeen or eighteen and just about to enter college—is a bit of a blur, caught midway through a sneeze or a laugh. Lance can’t really tell but his lips quirk in amusement at the picture.

 

The father’s face is circled with a blue marker. _Oh._

 

"Mr. D’Cunha isn’t with us anymore,” Pidge says solemnly, her eyes flicking towards Lance and Keith. Hunks nods in affirmation.

 

“It might be his spirit that’s come back,” he says, “Mrs. D’Cunha and her daughter moved in a couple of months ago; her husband died somewhere around the end of July.”

 

Lance hums, calculating the time in between, “Four months is _just_ in our window for a manifestation. Sounds like they’ve had a tough time,” he says with a sympathetic wince.

 

“I’ll bet,” Hunk says, “but this is where things start to get weird.”

 

Now, _that_ makes everyone sit up straight.

 

“So,” he says, shuffling the papers he has in hand and leaning forward, “The daughter claims that she's gotten the chills whenever she's been around the attic entrance from _the time they've moved in._ She also says she feels like someone's been watching her whenever she crosses the landing.”

 

“That—how would that work?” Lance says, feeling puzzled. “That falls out of our window. Is there anything—what, Keith?”

 

He trails off, looking annoyed to stare pointedly at Keith, who looks a bit lost and pauses the (somewhat irritating, if you ask Lance) throat clearing he was working up to get anyone's attention. “Sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all, “didn't mean to interrupt. But uh, _manifestation_?” he questions, raising a thick brow.

 

Well, Lance knows he or at least someone else really should have given Keith a proper run through before throwing him into the deep end. He sighs and gets ready to elaborate but Pidge beats him to it.

 

“It's, er, a working theory. Something we've all noticed from the time we started investigating,” she says, eyes glowing as she enters the Zone. _The Geek Zone_ , Lance thinks. _Research Central_ , if he’s feeling charitable (which he isn’t).

 

“Hm, how do I put this, there's a very specific time period between a death and the—I guess you could call it a _soul’s r_ e-emergence as a spirit. It's either at four months or later on exactly at six, after the person dies.”

 

“I think that's why there are a bunch of cultural legends where the numbers four and six are predominantly tied with death,” says Hunk. “All tales hold a kernel of truth.”

 

Keith nods in understanding, his curiosity sated…for now.

 

And with that, they get back to tackling the problem at hand feeling more perplexed than ever.

 

“We have to consider that it might not be the father,” says Pidge, finally.

 

“That’s what I’ve been thinking as well, but I’m still not sure what we’re going to be dealing with.” Hunk leans back with a grunt and brings out a second picture. It’s a close up of an ankle with nasty purple lines raking along the calf all the way down to the ankle. "Mrs. D'Cunha called us in after her daughter went up to the attic for a box and came back down with... _t_ _his"_

 

Lance winces as he studies the picture before him “A Type One Crawler perhaps?” he muses, taking in the deep scratches while fighting the urge to compare them to the mark on Keith’s face.

 

Pidge shakes her head, “Maybe, but those bite, not scratch,” Lance swallows a laugh when he notices Keith’s eyebrows disappear under his bangs, emotions ranging from horror to disgust flit across his face. “These look too _fast_ for a Crawler.”

 

“What other clues do you have?” Keith asks. “Why don’t you just storm it?”

 

Lance shakes his head at Keith. _He doesn’t know any better,_ he chants in head, he tries to will the mantra to calm him down, but he’s not sure how long he can last Keith’s hairbrained wannabe decisions. It’s not the first time this night that he’s cursed Pidge for calling him along on their mission. He knows that he’s also at fault here, he practically begged Keith to join them, but _his_ floor plan included a little more time off to get Keith prepared and attuned to his sense instead of this fly by the seat of your pants sort of training that Pidge had insisted on. Geez, this guy was gonna get himself _killed_.

 

Lance isn’t worried about Keith. Not at all. He’s just not sure how they’re gonna explain his body to Shiro when he inevitably gets skewered tonight.

 

“Man, you gotta cool it with the ‘Shoot first, ask questions later’ schtick,” Lance says, turning to him with wide eyes. “Or else Allura’s gonna manifest in this room; you’re going to summon her with your _words_. You don’t wanna get killed right off the bat with an attitude like that, put on a show for the ghosts before you think you’re gonna kick the bucket.”

 

“What Lance is trying to say,” Hunk says, quickly, pushing Lance out of Keith’s line of sight and taking reign of the conversation before Keith eventually blew up at Lance’s crass tone, “Is that we prioritize our safety over everything else, and that means doing everything; from multiple resource checks to grabbing hold of each and every single nugget of information we can lay our hands on so the mission is an absolute success.”

 

“Yeah, and that’s why I nearly got murked five minutes ago,” Keith says with a wry look.

 

Lance makes a sound of outrage from behind Hunk’s broad shoulders. “I told you not to do anything stupid!” he says hotly.

 

“Well, if you had gone through Hunk’s folder,” Keith says smugly, “We wouldn’t be in this situation.” He leans back, just out of Lance’s perceived reach. “I was in your care, afterall.”

 

At the back of his mind, Lance knows that Keith’s just riling him up for no reason, that there aren’t any hard feelings involved.

 

“It’s not my fault that you’re as dumb as a brick,” he shoots back instead. Keith glowers at Lance and he gives him a haughty look in return. “I told you to just take the readings and keep it low, but what do you do? _Open_ the hatch to the _one place_ all the signs point to!”

 

“Cool it you two.” Pidge deadpans, reaching across for the file. She’s ignoring everyone in favour of figuring out the spirit’s type. “Get your head in the game.”

 

She dumps the contents of the file onto the table and arranges them in a rough square. The family photo, the sticky note, the picture of the daughter’s scratched up ankle and finally a final sheet with a list of names and additional details outlined next to it. “Ah,” she says, holding up the last sheet. “This is what I had been looking for. It’s a list of previous tenants I compiled for Hunk last week.”

 

There are four names on the list. Two were families that had eventually moved out after just a couple of years living at Lilith Avenue. The other two tenants, a spinster and a bachelor, stayed for a little longer.

 

Pidge taps the first name on the list. “Basilton Bosch,” she says. “World War Two veteran. Also a game hunter.” she tsks lightly at that. “He lived here for over twenty five years and only left after his great grandson took him in when he turned seventy-three in 1995. Now, I don’t know what happened to him after that, but if he is dead, he wouldn’t have any ties to this house.” Her finger slides against another name on the list, she jabs her thumb at it a couple of times before continuing, “But here we have Imelda Cortez, a real estate agent with a relatively grounded life. She was forty-five but had a weak heart. It happened in the room Lance went to search.” she lets that statement hang heavy in the air for a moment. A moment to reflect.

 

 _A heart attack._ It went unsaid, it was easy to piece together.

 

Lance frowns at the sheet. “But the readings; they pointed to the attic. They should have come from the bedroom, then. ”

 

“It’s the only other option we have left, plus she’s the most recent tenant, and well, the only death in here. It’s possible that the spirit was just phasing through rooms when Keith happened to find it.”

 

“We still have to figure out its sub-type before we do anything too hasty.” Hunk interjects. “I’m going with a very short slasher.”

 

Pidge rolls her eyes at him, “I’m staying undecided. We’ll get Keith to describe it to us and then just act fast. Improvise.”

 

When Keith, understandably, doesn’t answer, Lance tells them that he’s sticking to the idea of perhaps an evolved crawler. “Gotta stay low to the ground when we’re casting out,” he says. He isn't too happy about this plan, especially with sending Keith out ( _again_ ) ahead of them all willy nilly, but they’re also not getting anywhere with mere speculation. “Now c’mon, we have a ghost to hunt. Let’s get stocked up.”

 

 

 

 

They all go up the stairs this time, each one equipped with a salt can, an iron loop and their iron pole. Pidge has an additional recording device clipped to her shorts and Hunk grapples with his EMF sensor, stopping momentarily to pull on the strap around his neck to relieve some of the tension from the heavy device tied to his back. Lance takes the forefront, Keith and Pidge follow, sandwiched between him and Hunk, who brings up the rear. “Keep your eyes peeled,” he says to Keith. “Let’s put them to the test today, eh.”

 

He finds it kinda funny that he said that to Keith because it’s pitch black going up the stairs, but their eyes are slowly growing accustomed to picking out shapes in the dark. They left the candle in the kitchen, it’ll be harder for Pidge and Keith to see ghosts in lit rooms, plus the visual overload makes it harder for Hunk and Lance to concentrate on their own senses.

 

Lance tugs at the silver crucifix around his neck. He’s agnostic, but the cross is still protection—a secondary line of defense. His grandfather passed it down to him on his thirteenth birthday and he sometimes feels bad that he cannot hold the same sort of devotion his Belo had for the cross; that he can’t look at it with reverence in his eyes like the old man, but it clears the air around him just a bit more, _purifies_ it, the silver in its thin frame is strong and potent against the spirits.

 

He marks the sign of the cross against his hand, diverging from the full body sign—this one’s done with just his thumb and index finger, His hand is stuck deep in his coat pocket, nobody else can see what he’s doing as they all trail after him in the dark. He’s not embarrassed, nor is he putting any stock in it. It’s just... _tradition_ , he muses. Something that grounds him.

 

“Okay-” Lance says, when they reach the top. He puts on his best Fred Jones accent and pulls out his finger-guns. “-let’s split up gang.” He feels the corners of his lip curl up but tempers his expression into something entirely more neutral.

 

Pidge and Hunk groan and Keith looks between the three of them, a look of befuddlement on his face. Lance wonders if he’s ever watched a cartoon in his life.

 

“We need to do one more sweep of the place since we got interrupted last time,” he continues, Hunk, you’re with Keith. Do the bedrooms. I’ll check the attic with Pidge.”

 

“No wait,” Hunk interjects, “We should switch. Pidge will pair up with me again.”

 

“What? _Why,”_ Lance whines. He wasn’t even thinking of optimal matchups for this round. He just wanted to be as far away from Keith as he could so he could stamp out the conflicting emotions fluttering in his chest whenever he looked at him.

 

“With my EMF, we kinda have our eyes in the sky now. It wouldn’t make sense for me to go with Keith-” he pauses and rubs his chin thoughtfully, “-although I really would like to see him in action.”

 

“Okay, you can take him then-” Lance begins, but Hunk stops him, “No, no. I need Pidge with me. If the software gets screwy, I’ll need her to fix it while I cast out for the spooks,” he says firmly. “This works well.”

 

“I-” Lance starts. Then stops. He sighs, this was sound logic. It made sense to split their visual aids, “I think that sounds good,” he says after a couple more seconds of making everyone wait in silence. “I guess _Keith_ and I will take the attic.” He’s not feeling too good about this, Keith’s staring at him like he knows what he’s thinking. He’s doesn’t look pleased about it as well if the frown on his face is anything to go by.

 

Pidge nods, “We'll meet up in fifteen minutes, okay?”

 

They split apart at the top. Lance waits for Hunk and Pidge to disappear into the first bedroom before he turns to Keith with weary eyes.  “All right, let's do this.”

 

 

 

 

Keith looks like he wants to say something. His mouth opens, then shuts. Then he opens it again before scowling (at himself? At Lance? Who knows) and turning towards the hanging ladder.

 

Lance goes up first with a loosened salt can held tight in his hand. He closes his eyes as he steps up, casting out his consciousness, but he comes back with nothing. The air still feels chilly, but it's much warmer than what he had felt the first time—the second he felt the ice settle in his bones when Keith had loosened the hatch he knew that something had gone terribly wrong. It was a good thing he was close enough to knock Keith out of the way back there. Now, he just has to keep that streak going...  

 

“You—you're glowing,” he hears Keith say in hushed tones, like he's in awe or something.

 

It was just his hands and head, if Lance wanted to be specific. Sometimes his chest brightened up as well, as if he'd swallowed a tube-light like a sword eater. He’d turn a brilliant red from the inside, veins visible under the translucent skin and giving him an eerie sort of look. He'd only gotten a glimpse of what it looked like when he'd once opened his eyes and found himself in front of a mirror instead of the door that he was supposed to get to during a scouting mission. His reflection had also tried to attack him, but that was a story for another time.

 

“Yeah,” he says, “It’s a side effect, I guess. Gotta check ahead before we go in. See how close it is.” there’s a faint prickling at the base of his skull, they could probably make it up into the attic without getting ambushed. “C’mon.”

 

He scrambles up and lays down his chain loop. Their first line of defence.

 

Keith follows as he sets up. “What do we do now?” he asks.

 

“We wait.”

 

x_X_x

 

When Keith huffs for the third time, Lance is ready to blow his top. Where did that stoic indifference of his go? Every movement, every little exhale was a reminder of the elephant in the room.

 

And _he’s_ right next to him.

 

They swept the attic twice, Keith’s spent half of his time tripping over his feet because Lance's… _bioluminescence,_ was pretty distracting. He said so as much and Lance had panicked, shutting him down firmly with a “focus on your sense or you're gonna get us shredded.” Keith had just looked confused and Lance thought he saw his face twist into something like hurt, but it was gone in a flash—not long before he got a trademark scowl from him. Y’know, the usual.

 

He casts out after that and can still feel the faint pressure pushing at the back of his mind. It’s familiar to him in the sense that he’s a hundred percent certain that this is his spirit, but something feels off. He can’t identify its sentience. Where’s the evil intent? Where’s the malice or the anger that usually comes with it? This just feels like anticipation for some reason. He doesn’t know what to make of it.

 

He closes his eyes and presses a hand to the floor, reaching out to see if he’s close enough to the source to get a vision. Something starts to take shape behind his lids. A tree. Foliage? Why is he on the ground? _Why-_

 

Keith makes a uncommitted noise by his side, a little mumble. He’s frowning at his feet and he missed Lance reach an almost full glow where he nearly lights up everything around him--it breaks Lance’s concentration and he snaps. “Okay. That’s it.” he whirls around with a snarl as he starts to dim. “What’s going on?”

 

Keith starts and looks warily at him. “I—” he says. “I don’t know?”

 

Lance snorts. “Yeah, and that’s why you’ve been faffing about for the last ten minutes.”

 

Keith scowls at him. _This was more like it._ Lance thinks, it’s the only face he’s gotten used to seeing recently. “It’s nothing.”

 

Lance gives him an unimpressed look. It holds for long pause before Keith seems to decide that it’s better to just give in.

 

“It’s nothing…but, If I said it was because of you, what would you do?”

 

Lance blinks in surprise. “Me?” he says in surprise. “What did I do?”

 

Keith looks at him, looking incredulous for a second before he moves back. “Everything.” he says, with a roll of his eyes. Then, “nothing.”

 

Lance rakes a hand through his choppy hair and makes a small sound of frustration. He gives his surroundings a glance, incase any thing's shifted because he sure as hell isn't concentrating on his senses right now. “Yo, you gotta give me something useful to work with, man,” he says.

 

Keith scuffs the tip of his boot against the floor. Draws something into the teak panelling before kicking at it, disturbing years of settled dust around them.

 

He looks back up at Lance and its with a determined sort of little glare that he uses when he speaks, “I just—argh— _why,”_ he mumbles, painfully tracking through his words. “ _Why_ do you hate me so much?"

 

Ah. _Shit_. Lance was not prepared for this.

 

"Was it something I did? Was it because I never let you lead the sims? I was—I—it's just fun messing with you sometimes. I thought we were on the same page, like I know you want to insist on keeping me at arms length or whatever-” he tosses a hand out dismissively, “-and I can deal with that. I mean, I’ve dealt with your... _bullshit_ for two years, haven’t I? But, sometimes I catch you looking at me with this look on your face. Like you'd rather be anywhere else than here, and I _dunno_ , today’s been the worst it’s ever gotten.”

 

Lance reels back. Keith’s hit too close to home, and now he's slowly unravelling in front of him. Lance _does_ wish he was literally anywhere else but Keith’s reasoning is also...completely _wrong_. But that’s not his fault.

 

And Lance feels so _guilty._

 

Keith looks a little wild and a little confused. He's just _upset_ , and Lance's heart clenches a little at the look on his face.

 

“I—I,” he stammers.

 

Keith eyes track over his face, like he’d get the answer without Lance saying a word. And that’s unfair, but he does just that. Before Lance can say a word, just something to alleviate the tension.

 

_I don’t hate you. I just don’t know how to act around you. I DON’T H—_

 

"I’ll be retracting my offer from your club.” Keith looks disappointed with what he seems to see as he sighs and turns away. “Y’know, I get the rivalry. I mean it’s stupid, but it’s _you—_ I’m not sure what I should have expected, _”_ He laughs a little hollowly, it’s a crafted jab to get Lance to respond to him, but Lance is still trying to wrangle the words out of his mouth, looking at Keith instead with a blank stare. He sighs and looks away. “It’s gonna be weird working together like this,” he says, “I’ll just stay outta your way from now on. You guys can take care of Shiro’s manor; you even have that EMT or EVP-thing or whatever now, so you don’t need my Sight. I’ll pay you guys after that and we can forget everything that happened and go on our merry way.”

 

“Keith, you’re making a big deal out of this…” the second those words are out of his mouth, Lance knows he’s crossed some sort of line _yet_ again. Keith’s angry face goes completely blank. “N-no, wait. I mean—Look I’m _so—_ ”

 

Keith stalks up to him, Lance takes a step back, and then another, and another, right into the corner of the room until his back hits the wall and he has no where else to go. “Save it Lance," Keith hisses. "you just don’t seem to be getting it.”

 

 

**KEITH, Friday, 12:29 pm, 42H, Lilith Avenue - The Attic**

 

Lance just refuses to see the point here, right? Keith’s tired of his shenanigans; he’s friendly one minute and then suddenly jumpy and cold the next. He’s always so _red_ around him, what did he do that pissed Lance off that much?

 

“Save it Lance, you just don’t seem to be getting it.” Keith’s words are crisp and clear, he’s done. He turns away after getting a good look at Lance’s jaw swinging wide open, gaping miserably at him.

 

“ _Listen to me,”_ Lance insists, and Keith stops at his tone; it’s so fiercely defiant.

 

He turns to look at him, but it’s not because of Lance, it's not because of that kicked puppy look on his face, that he looks _so_ wounded and remorseful. It’s because Keith’s _tired._ “No, _you_ listen. This-" he gestures between them; gestures around them. His hands wave wildly like a mad man. "This actually _hurts_ sometimes.” They clench into tight fists, “I don’t _know_ what warranted all of this, this... _anger,_ from you, and quite frankly, I’m done going along with all of this. I thought we might get to a point where we’d at least tolerate each other, but right now, I’d rather punch you back.’

 

He locks eyes with Lance, or he should have, but Lance is staring past his shoulder, eyes wide and darting all around Keith but never at him, he's looking for something that he cannot see. “Are you even paying any attention?” Keith snaps. Lance takes a step in his direction, his eyes still not meeting his.

 

 _Oh, come_ on. _Even when he’s_ pretending _to be remorseful he can’t go through with it. I...really should just leave._

 

“Lance, what are you—”

 

“Cool it for a bit,” he interrupts in a low voice, Keith bristles and moves to look around him, at what’s gotten Lance so fixated, because he isn’t sure if this is another shitty move or prank or _something_ like all the other times, but Lance grabs his chin, holding it firm. “ _Don’t.”_ he hisses, there's a bead of sweat sliding down the side of his head, he gaze is urgent. “Don’t move a muscle. We need to _go._ ”

 

It’s too late. Keith’s already more than halfway turned around. He catches a flash of luminous, pale, white light but can’t stop to hone in on the source because he’s suddenly flung backwards with a yelp, a strong back in front of him, a hand tight on his wrist. Lance has his rod out in front of them, just like he had done barely two hours ago. Well, kinda; he’s fumbling with it at his belt, half telescoped, but then Keith notices the light getting stronger and stronger, and he can’t see it because Lance is completely blocking his line of sight. “You need to move.” he shouts, panic overtaking him. “Or it’ll get you!” and it seems like Lance also knows exactly how close it’s getting despite not being able to see it, but he’s not budging from his spot, no matter how hard Keith tries to shove him off him, if anything, he nearly drapes himself all over Keith.

 

And then it’s too late. Keith feels the hair on the left his of his body jump to attention. He sees the flash of light zoom by. It’s close.

 

So close that it passes right _through_ Lance and skims right past his own shoulder without touching him, but the static flying through the air makes him think that he’s already dead for a second.

 

He hadn’t even noticed the room get progressively colder until it was right upon them.

 

But just as it happened, it all goes silent. The air’s almost hot compared to what it was a second ago. Everything is calm.

 

And then, Lance keels over with a soft groan and collapses against the floor.

 

_Fuck._

 

“PIDGE! _HUNK!_ We need you here, stat!” Keith hollers, jumping into action, there's no time to waste. Adrenaline courses through his veins and he picks Lance up like a sack of potatoes.

 

He drags him over to their iron ring and with the pack on his belt, he pulls out an energy bar and a bottle of Pocari, which he unscrews and tips into Lance’s lolling mouth.

 

The energy bar will just choke him. Keith lets it fall to the floor.

 

He hears their muffled answers, Hunk and Pidge sound alarmed, but at least they are _here_. The ladder at the hatch starts to shake.

 

Lance is still awake, he’s looks up at Keith from under his eyelashes. He’s face is contorted into a big, pained grimace.

 

“I don’t—” he rasps. “I—don’t—”

 

“Fuck,” Keith says looking down at Lance’s lightly thrashing body on the ground next to him. The lower half of his neck, under his shirt, blossoms into a bright purple. “You gotta stay quiet or you’ll zap whatever strength you have left."

 

Lance pays him no heed. “You can’t leave," he wheezes, "we need to _see_ , that machine will break down in two more cases, the spirits...they know how to wreck ‘em. I don't wanna be the reason you think you shouldn't join us.” He gives Keith a pleading look, and then, “I swear, I _swear_ to freaking _Venkman_ that I don’t hate you, Keith, you moron. I'm sorry.”

 

Keith’s losing his goddamned mind. This is awful. There should be no logical timeline where Lance McClain would readily apologise to him as he died on the fucking floor. He pinches himself, _this is just a weird dream_ . _Please be some fucked up hallucination my brain's throwing up, I don't know what to do with dead people. Please be okay._ He pulls Lance's head into his lap, ignoring the spluttering and wow, a really red face. God, Lance's gonna die looking up at the face of the one guy whose guts he absolutely _hates_. He's gonna die mad and then he's going to come back to haunt Keith for the rest of his life.

 

Hunk bursts through the hatch with Pidge hot on his heels. "Sorry!" he exclaims. “We ran into it. The spirit, I mean. It ran into into our room and things got tricky.” Then he looks at Lance and, to Keith's surprise, _rolls his eyes._ “For god’s sake, Lance.” he groans, seemingly not as concerned as, in Keith’s opinion, he _should_ have been. “Not again.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahahaha, I do not apologise for the ruckus this might cause. 
> 
> BUT THESE TWO ARE MAKING PROGRESS, TOO BAD THEY GOT _INTERRUPTED._ I'd love to know what you think Keith's feelings are like in this entire mess, I'll give you my fic-canon POV later, but I'm curious to see with what you guys have inferred. Just remember that this is a slow burn, but I will be adding in one more tag soon enough.
> 
> That's the one tag that completes all KL fic requirements lmao. 
> 
> Anyhoo, the title's from AC/DC's 'Hell's Bells.' I'm running out of titles, so once again, send help!!!
> 
> Kudos and comments are VERY much appreciated, I love each and every one of you c:
> 
>  
> 
> _____________________________________________
> 
> ALSO HERE'S SOME ADDITIONAL INFO- 
> 
> I was talking to a friend yesterday and I realised that some of y'all might want to get the facts on the numbers (the use of four and six for the manifestations.
> 
> These are just liberties I'm taking to strengthen up the story, but the tales/myths etc, are real.
> 
> The number four in chinese is homophonous with their word for death (it's pronounced as _sei_ ) and this follows a similar trend with Japanese as well - people sometimes say _yon_ over _shi_ because of the connotation it holds. (and in China, apparently some buildings skip the fourth floor and just go straight to five, but I'm not sure how large the extent of this practice is. I'll do a bit more digging.)
> 
> And I chose 6 because of the biblical 666 thing, lmao.
> 
> (It goes along with themes of creation and equilibrium, death isn't necessarily bad, it's just a part of a cycle. Also is a reference to man as a Beast.) 
> 
> On another note, I wasn't sure if I even wanted to mention religion here, I know it's a heavy topic, but I wanted to give Lance a chance to allude to his family while noting how he plays off religion and weighs it against what he sees and deals with because of the ghosts. His agnosticism _is_ a bit of a filler for how I personally feel I suppose. It's comfort but at the same time, I don't know how far the extent of the belief that I have (if any) actually goes.


	8. Night Prowler

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance gets ahead of himself

**KEITH, Friday, 12:40 am, 42H, Lilith Avenue - The Kitchen**

 

The team once again, finds themselves back in Mrs. D'cunha’s dinghy little kitchen. Lance is seated in a rickety chair by the island with his t-shirt off and his chest bare so Hunk can assess the mottled pink that spans across the expanse of his skin.

 

Pidge and Keith hover behind him. Keith’s almost thrumming with concern, but unlike him,  it feels like Hunk and Pidge have been through this too many times to build up a suitable reaction (or so it seems.)

 

Keith asks if that is the case, and Lance hisses through his teeth when Hunk accidentally prods too hard at the bruise as he stills momentarily to answer Keith.

 

“Sorry,” Hunk tells Lance apologetically before he looks up at Keith. “A normal hit like that would have knocked someone out. Make what you want of that.”

 

Pidge pushes her glasses up her nose, “Lance has been hit so many times that he’s built up a tolerance to it. Like an alcoholic. This is normal.”

 

“Hey, I’m right here.”

 

She snorts, “I didn’t say you _were_ an alcoholic.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.” Lance grumbles. He crosses his arms over his chest and winces, his side probably burns. Keith can empathize, his finger lightly traces along the shadow of his own scar. It’s nearly gone now, you have to squint to see it.

 

Hunk suddenly lets loose a heavy sigh, his thumb clinically poking along the long bruise tracking down Lance’s sternum, “Dude, if your ghost had pushed past any higher it would have stopped your heart.” Keith feels his stomach drop to his knees and he sees PIdge turn pale next to him.

 

“Mm, got lucky. But it still wouldn’t have killed me.”

 

It obvious that Hunk is trying to hold back his frustration. From where he stands, Keith can vaguely make out a vein in his neck throbbing as he shakes his head.

 

Hunk turns to give _him_ a significant look, and then looks back at Lance, and for the life of him, Keith has no idea what to think about what had just transpired.

 

“Dude. Just, get your head in the game, yeah?”

 

He gets a pained smile for his efforts, Keith wonders whom Lance is trying to fool.

 

Lance is still looking a little pale, but Pidge was right, he looks like he’s almost back to normal, and all within the span of a few minutes. It had taken Keith nearly two hours just to get the feeling back in face the day he had that encounter at Shiro’s place. “You should put some, uh, lavender? I think it was lavender—on it,” Keith speaks up with an uncomfortable feeling settling into his gut and three pairs of eyes whip around to stare at him, but he avoids buckling under the combined weight of their gazes, feeling the desperate need to break up some of the weird tension in the room.

 

Lance makes a face, “They smell so _strong_ —” he starts, but Hunk cuts him off with a flick to the forehead and a smile for Keith, “Not bad,” he says with an approving grin. “I have some ointment in the Jeep,” he continues, side eyeing Lance with a stern look. “And no, I don’t care how smelly it is or how sleepy it makes you, you gotta heal up man.”

 

“All right,” Lance murmurs stiffly and gives in with a heavy sigh, “Thank you.”

 

“Anything for my bro,” Hunk says with a small grin as he gets up to move—no hard feelings, apparently. Lance places a hand on his chest, mood lifting as he mouths back a soft ‘ _bro’_ at Hunk which turns his grin into a full on smile. Keith’s almost jealous of the camaraderie that flows between the group.

 

But, he _has_ friends. Close ones, in fact. _Obviously_. Hell, Pidge is one of them.

 

It’s just that there is this gap between them all. Shiro, Matt and Allura are ready to leave while Pidge and Keith have just started. Shiro and Allura are moving on to train cadets on their own next year and then become deep space explorers; Matt’s started working towards a PhD, he'll join them as an engineer in a couple of years.

 

Everyone’s gonna fork off at the end of this road. It was one of the reasons Keith had taken the initiative to stay back when Shiro got ownership of his great aunt’s manor. They needed to forge their own paths.  

 

It also means that they don’t meet up as often as they used to, which, even to begin with, wasn’t that often. But Pidge was lucky (and Keith’s sometimes a little bitter about this). She had apparently found Lance and Hunk at the beginning of their second year, around the same time that she was introduced to Keith as well. But, to give her some credit, she had tried to introduce all of them and bridge the groups, but, ah well, _Lance_ happened.

 

And Keith had managed to keep his distance despite seeing them all nearly every day.

 

Keith had gotten so lonely that he’d actually resorted to accepting James Griffin’s apology at the beginning of the year and had formed a tentative sort of acquaintanceship with him. Griffin honestly wasn’t _that_ bad, he had changed for the better over the last three years. But, well, he’s still _Griffin,_ and Keith’s a little apprehensive about breaking any rules around him (curfew, for one. James nabbing the RA position on their floor was Not Good). He went a little nuts with the formalities. 

 

And for now, he'll settle for swallowing down the envy and longing welling up in his throat.  

 

Hunk pulls the EMF projector along with him as he moves towards the back door and he gives his team a questioning look “You guys can manage, right? You’ve got the real deal with you,” he says as he nods at Keith which snaps him out of his reverie.

 

Keith shrugs. _Yeah, probably._

 

“Relax, nothing’s gonna get us here,” Pidge says with a lazy wave and Lance gives him an affirmative grunt from his chair. It seems to set him at ease, but not before tossing a final worried look at Lance over his shoulder. He doesn't trust his friend’s nonchalant demeanor. Keith thinks he probably has the right idea where Lance was concerned.

 

The door barely shuts with a final click and Pidge rounds on Lance. Keith instinctively takes a step back from the irate five foot flat demon stalking up to Lance, he's doing his best to look unperturbed, but then he glances quickly at Keith and he _sees_ the terror that flashes through Lance's eyes. He feels bad for Lance but decides that one dead man is better than two, declining Lance’s non-verbal request and watches on as he grudgingly gives in to his fate.

 

“Now you've gone and gotten Hunk worried,” Pidge says, hands planted firmly on her hips.

 

“When is he not?” Lance counters.

 

“This isn’t funny, you know.”

 

“I’m not trying to be?” he snaps back. “I didn’t have a chance to think, I just had to do what I did.”

 

Pidge looks like she wants to hit something—something decidedly Lance-shaped. “If you weren’t so goddamned reckless all the time,” she blows up instead, right in his face. Her tiny hands clench and unclench as she tries to calm herself down. “Every other case we take ends up with you doing something so _stupid_ and I can't tell if you even care or not. You’ve been playing Russian roulette with your life for far too long,“  Pidge shakes in fury, and her bottom lip trembles, “Don’t you get it? We don’t want you to keep sacrificing yourself for us. If something happened to you...well, I don’t know how we’d handle it. Not well for sure.”

 

Lance softens as he replies, eyes pinching and his mouth settles into a strained smile. He looks a little out of his element. Keith's well aware that Pidge rarely… _emotes_ as aggressively as she just did. It's enough to make anyone uncomfortable. “Keith wouldn’t have made it if it had touched him, you know that. It would have gotten him head on if _something_ hadn’t been done.”

 

Keith wishes that he didn’t have to be privy to this little chat, nevermind that they're taling like he's not even in the room, but this little discussion fels a tad too heavy for him at the moment.

 

Pidge stops likes she’s been hit, her glance flickers to Keith and then she looks devastated. “I...shit. I am _so_ sorry,” she stammers, “I didn’t mean to say it like that. It would be terrible if anything happened to you as well,” she looks away in shame. “ _Fuck_.”

 

Keith waves his hands wildly around him. God, today's been a series of one disastrous conversation after the other. “No, no,” he tries to assure her. “I get it. You don’t have to explain yourself.” _Please_ , he begs the universe. _Get me outta here._

 

They fall into a tense silence for a few moments.

 

It goes without saying that Keith understands completely where Pidge is coming from. He’s a little shocked himself. Of course, he doesn’t think so lowly of Lance to believe that he’d leave him to get skewered by the spirit. With the kinda track record they had, he’d expected him to just kick him out of the way or something.

 

But, he remembers the drape of Lance’s body above his, the tight grip around his wrist, the muffled yell that sounded like a desperate ‘No!’ and then his refusal to budge despite Keith doing his best to push him off and get them clear and out of the way.

 

That’s when it hits him—his eyes widen as he digests this new piece of information.

 

Lance…

 

...has an insanely _ridiculous_ martyr complex.

 

He pounds a fist against his palm in the light of this newfound discovery. Lance gives him a puzzled side glance but doesn’t say anything, just lifts a judging eyebrow. 

 

“The first time Lance did something like this,” Pidge says, startling the two boys. Lance winces and it's probably because of the tenseness that still grips his chest. “He got knocked out for a good six hours.” she motions to Keith to follow her and she leads him around Lance's chair, frowning and pushing back at Lance's shoulder to make him face  front after he painfully twists to the side to follow them, a curious frown in place. “I've been with them for three years now—seen a lot because of this club and then some. But this was the worst.” She waves a hand at Lance. “That banshee just _poured_ out of him.”

 

Keith flinches at the visual she brings up.

 

  
They've ended up around the back of the chair. Keith ignores Lance squirming under the combined weight of their scrutiny and instead hones in on the little sun freckles that dot Lance skin and then the massive scar that literally explodes across the expanse of his back. “Dunno when that one's gonna go,” she adds drily.

 

Keith raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t miss the other marks dotting his body—more evidence of what Keith has chalked up to some insane need to cover everyone but himself. Admirable, but also _dumb_.

 

Lance is starting to get a little red behind the ears and Keith realizes that he’s been staring too long. He politely looks away with a little cough.

 

“Guess it makes it hard to go out swimming, eh?”

 

That gets a surprised bark of laughter out of Lance. This time he twists all the way around in his seat to face Keith. “Wetsuits would help, I guess,” he says and then winces, “But I’m really not that bothered.”

 

Then he squirms again and digs back into the headrest of the chair, pulling his shirt around him to fend off the chill with a small grimace. Pidge tosses him an unzipped hoodie from a bag and he pulls it around himself gratefully.

 

They wait in silence and Keith remembers the fight he had with Lance just before this mess. He scowls at the floor, missing the look Lance gives him.

 

But he isn’t really upset with Lance. Not anymore. Not... _exactly._

 

If he stays here, something is bound to blow up sooner or later. It’s too much, too volatile. He gives the mark running up Lance’s chest a final glance and decides that he has to find another way.

 

And he too, unbeknownst to Lance, feels guilty.

 

 

* * *

**PIDGE, Friday, 1:59 am, 42H, Lilith Avenue - The Kitchen**

 

Keith’s been weird ever since they came back down. Well, weirder than usual. He keeps shooting Lance indecipherable looks and furrowed brows every now and then. Pidge is certain he has no idea that he’s even doing it, he’s not being discreet about it at all.

 

Lance seems to be doing the exact same thing. He waits until Keith’s attention is momentarily drawn elsewhere before turning to him with a worried frown of his own.

 

But with Lance, ah, well. Pidge can read him like a book.

 

_Good grief._

 

The interpersonal relationships that tethered the people around Pidge were incredibly fascinating to her, no matter that she wasn’t very good at holding her own. She had a very limited group of close friends. And, if she was being honest (in her _humble_ opinion) it was because her intellect intimidated people. _But not all,_ she concedes, thinking of the team and Shiro. _But most._

 

But that gave her a chance to just sit back and observe. She has built up a handy lexicon of interactions that she’s analytically dissected and inferred numerous causations and correlations; it’s been an immense help over the years. She now knows how to navigate the masses around her with a modicum of dignity that she didn’t have a few years ago.

 

It helps the team with their cases as well. Their clients weren’t perfect angels sometimes. Spirits usually had a motive for coming back—be it an intentionally misplaced last will and testament or because of the inherent to sniff out a cheating partner. Justice was the keyword here. Pidge can tell if someone’s holding back something, she knows how to get to unravel any suspicions that start niggling at her brain. Knows how to get _answers_.

 

She looks at Keith and Lance and can see what’s happening. A _blind_ man could have confirmed it, she doesn't need her brains for this. They’re that obvious.

 

This was something slow and sticky. Despite Keith being all up in Lance’s business and proclaiming that he didn’t want anything to do with him, and despite Lance’s evident animosity and puerile behaviour, there was no doubting that these two had been intrinsically woven around each other from the day they met.

 

 _Despite_ Keith apparently forgetting an entire year in the bargain.

 

This brief respite, with the club and a temporary truce was a potential catalyst to put behind years of miscommunication. They could perhaps make a good team.

 

If these two took the time to stop and think.

 

Well, _that_ was never going to happen.

 

She had caught the end of their panicked conversation as she raced up to the attic with Hunk. Lance had always been one for dramatics, and this was no better. _“I swear to freaking Venkman that I don’t hate you, Keith,”_ she mutters to herself, unable to stop the soft laughter that bubbles out of her mouth. Lance really was pulling out all the stops today, wasn’t he?

 

“What?” says Lance, he raises an eyebrow at her in suspicion. “You say something?”

 

Another round of laughter. They both look at her with mildly worried frowns on their faces. “It’s nothing,” she says in response and shakes her head.

 

“Listen,” Lance says. His fingers drum against the seat of his armrest in an agitated staccato. “We should really figure out what this thing is before we go up again...we’re not doing so hot.”

 

“How’s the hit?” Keith runs him over, eyebrows deeply furrowed, his hand twitches at his side, almost like he was about to reach out for Lance’s shoulder. Pidge notes this with some interest. He's completely ignoring the task at hand.

 

“Same old, same old. It’s frozen solid but it _burns_ at the same time. How wild is that?” Lance answers incredulously. Keith nods solemnly in understanding; Pidge merely raises a regal brow. “But I reckon it should be okay in another fifteen minutes I think. Just need me some more Pocari, gotta speed up the process if we want to get this sorted by sunrise—“ The back door clicks into place and everyone sits up straight. “Hunk’s back,” he says, making a move to get up. “I just gotta—”

 

He’s pushed back into his chair, but not before he lets out an ungainly squeak. Pidge is almost surprised to see Keith on his other side, hand on a shoulder just like her. “ _No_ , you said you were gonna need a few more minutes and you’re not getting up before I say it’s time up,” she says.

 

Lance huffs, “Sure thing, ma,”  he says with a scowl. “I’ll just brainstorm from here.”

 

Hunk pokes his head in through the door. “I’m back,” He announces, and tosses a small tub of ointment at Lance. He plucks it effortlessly out of the air, “and I come bearing presents.”

 

Lance quickly unscrews the cap and scoops up a generous dollop of the lavender scented goop to spread over his damaged flesh. “Ooh, that’s the ticket.” He gasps, eyes shut and blissed out. “This smells like my great aunt Céleste, but, Hunk, you’re an _angel_.”

 

“Allura’s hopping mad, by the way. She’s out for your blood.”

 

Lance blinks up at him. Hot _damn_ , Allura’s gonna chew him up once they get out.

 

Pidge just _might_ be looking forward to this, maybe it’ll get his head on back the right way. “Ah hell. It would have been better if the spirit had just gotten me,” he says flippantly and she gives him a warning glare which has him scrambling to straighten up. “Or uh, we could just ignore everything I just said and get back to work?” he remedies.

 

She rolls her eyes at him. “Finally.” She mutters and then looks at Keith and Hunk. “We should just stick together this time, use all our senses at once. Keith, did you see anything when you were up there?”

 

Keith’s stares at the scratched up table in front of him; he’s thinking hard. “It was really bright, like this almost pure white light.” He trails off, squinting a bit as he seemingly racks his brains for something else to give them a clue. He gives up eventually, shrugging and shaking his head sadly, “That’s all I know, it happened really quickly, sorry. I’d barely gotten a glimpse of it before it just _pounced_. Then Lance, er, jumped in front of me.”

 

Lance’s ears are pink when he interjects, “I just thought of something” he shouts. Pidge knows it’s a diversion, but she feels bad for Lance; he has had a pretty long night so she lets it go. “Alright, so Pidge can’t really see their forms, right?” he says, looking at her. “Just baseless forms, like a floating blob of light. A faint _glow_ .” Pidge nods, wondering where this is going. “Well, don’t you always describe them as _purple_?”

 

All at once, something clicks in her head. Her eyes are drawn once again to Lance’s wound. It’s _pink_ , like a slightly scarred flesh wound. None of that insidious purple that she's come to associate solely with the spirits anywhere. If anything, it seems to be healing up faster than any other hit he’s ever taken before.

 

“Oh,” says Hunk. He’s gotten it as well. “So it’s not, like…” he frowns, trying to put a name to something entirely new, “' _Malevolent_?’”

 

“I don’t think so, I didn’t sense any intent. That’s what makes it easier for me to track them down,” Lance says, almost hopping out of his chair. “I think me and Keith spooked it and set it off or something. I don’t think it was coming up to us to begin with." he steeples his hands together, he looks ridiculous. "thing is, I could sense it from the start but it hadn't been close to us. And it took its own sweet time to come and get us. It was drawn there, but it wasn't out for blood. It wasn't _angry_.”

 

“What were you two doing before it got to you?” Hunk asks curiously. It’s enough to make Lance's excited smile drop and go on the defensive.

 

Keith tries to play it off, “Just had a mild disagreement. My fault, really, I confronted Lance about something er, unimportant _,_ at a bad time.”

 

Hunk looks like he wants to ask questions, but Pidge can’t see this getting any better—Lance has already retreated into his hoodie, like some miserable sort of turtle. “Okay, so I’m just going to assume that your ‘mild disagreement’ was a bit more emotional than what you’re letting on, because that’s a sure way to attract spirits.”

 

Keith looks away and Pidge shrugs, “Well, we finally have something to work with. Now we just have to figure out who it is.”

 

“Or _what_ ,” says Hunk with a knowing look. “Something tells me this ghost wasn’t even a human,” he shakes his head. “I know you lot are in for finding this thing innocent. But just remember that these are _ghosts_ that we’re dealing with. It’s gonna take a bit more than that to convince me.

 

“Because now, we’re really walking in _blind_ .”

 

 

* * *

 

 

**LANCE, Friday, 2:20 am, 42H, Lilith Avenue**  

 

The thing is, this spirit could be anything, just like Hunk had pointed out earlier. Lance can’t think of a reason for a peaceful spirit to even exist. At least an imprint of a human.

 

It went against everything they’ve figured out so far.

 

But the implications of this being something decidedly inhuman leave him with the chills. They still have so much to uncover about the underworld. Every case they pick up leaves them with something new, something fresh to add onto Alfor and Coran’s years of work. To think that this has started as a way to merely sate his curiosity; Lance’s thirst to dig deeper went unquenched now.

 

He didn’t have Hunk’s engineering skills, nor Pidge’s technical prowess and ability to pick up information from the most obscure of references like a sponge, but he had his tenacity.

 

He’s _proud_ of his bull-headedness, dammit.

 

It was exciting. And scary, because he gets into close shaves way too often and even Lance knows that his luck is bound to run out someday, and sometimes the spirits had a nasty way of sneaking up on him which easily took a couple of years off his life span every time they tried to jump him, but he wouldn’t give this up for anything.

 

 

 

 

They’ve decided to go back up to the attic. But there’s no splitting up this time. They set up a chain link near the door and crowd inside it. Hunk draws a secondary barrier in salt around their circle.

 

Lance tries to remember whatever the hell he can of the spirit before it had sunk into him. His torso’s almost completely healed up by now, It’s still a light pink, but fading quickly, and apart from a few soft twinges, he can’t feel any pain. He decides that this is quite unlike anything else he’s ever dealt with.

 

“I vote we lure the ghost in,” he says and Hunk turns to him with a horrified sort of look on his face.

 

“That’s suicide!”

 

“Hush, you big baby. I’m certain this isn’t going to try and kill us.” he retorts, and Hunk’s eyebrows nearly fly off his face, they’ve peaked behind his bandana.

 

“ _You nearly died, like, five minutes ago!”_

 

 _“_ And I’m telling you that it was just an accident. Now calm down and _c’mon,_ we need to put this thing out of its misery.” He pauses for a moment and side eyes Hunk, “actually, no. Keep it going,” he says glibly. “Your distress will probably bring it back up here.”

 

He steps out of the circle. Everyone gasps. “Lance, do ever pay any attention to literally _anything_ I ever tell you?” Pidge growls.

 

“If this is about me putting myself in unnecessary danger, don’t bother. I have no plans to sacrifice myself right now, just...setting up some bait.”

 

“Does he ever listen to the bullshit that comes out of his mouth,” Keith mutters.

 

Lance points his sage bottle at Keith, “I heard that, pretty boy. Don’t make me spray you.” he shuts his eyes and turns his back to the team, “but really, all that iron and salt’s messing with my Senses. Plus Keith's a mouth breather. “

 

He gets an irritated “fuck you, ” for that.

 

With one last cheeky look at everyone, he closes his eyes and reaches _out_.

 

Whispering fills his head, the voices of the dearly departed. He can feel his body warm up just a bit, he should be glowing by now. Fireworks explode behind his eyes, but no pictures form. _Closer, closer._ Lance thinks, _come_ closer.

 

“He’s doing that thing again.” he hears Keith say in a hushed voiced. “Holy shit.” His face grows warm, like his body, but he has a feeling it’s not because of his Sense.

 

Nevermind Keith and his distractions, the air’s turning colder, his head feels lighter. Ah, it’s about time! The light’s still dancing behind his eyes, but it’s starting to twist and weave into something.

 

 _Lance is on the ground, tall grass bends and bows with the wind flowing overhead. He feels_ jittery _. And ravenous, he needs to eat something, something warm, meaty, bloody and_ alive _. Unfamiliar scents assault his nose_ —

 

Lance pushes out of the vision, his nose scrunches up and he gives it a few furious tweaks.

 

“What on earth are you doing?” Pidge asks him.

 

“Dunno, something’s up with my senses. I feel overstimulated. Huh,” he looks up with a wry sort of grin on his face. Everyone gives him a wary look, he’s about to drop a _line. “_ That’s what she said.”

 

“Gross.” says Hunk.

 

“Classic Lance,” is what Keith says.

 

Pidge seems somewhat distracted with the shelves that line the room, she's leering far into the dark, but it doesn't stop her from sending Lance a thumbs down.

 

“ _He_ said?” Lance offers before rounding on Keith, “and like you’ve stuck around long enough to know that.” He pokes back.

 

“Believe me, I've tried blocking you out in class, but you're just so _loud.”_  Lance opens his mouth but Keith beats him to the punch. “ _Don't_ ,” he warns.

 

Lance rocks back on his feet. “Anyways, our ghostie’s coming in hot. Also, I'm convinced it's not a human imprint. I got into its head space. It wasn't thinking of much and  I don’t know why it was on the ground but it was as hungry as a wol—” He stops, stunned. “Wait, I think i got it.” he claps loudly, “ It’s some sort of anim—”

 

“—I think it’s a cat,” says Hunk. “I just heard a yowl." he looks excited. "Aw, that actually sounded kinda cute _.”_

 

Lance glares at him for stealing his thunder.

 

“A bobcat,” Keith agrees.

 

Wait. A _cat_?

 

Pidge gasps in surprise and gives him a pitying look, “No, no. It’s obviously a caracal. Keith, c’mon, man. You should know this.”

 

“I’m looking right at it!” his gaze is trained hard on something right near Lance’s feet, and all at once, he feels the cold wafting off it. “It’s a bobcat!”

 

If Lance’s heart seizes up a bit, it’s a toss up between it being a side effect of the supernatural, or just pure genuine horror.

 

With a yelp, he hops back into the circle, “Why didn’t you say something _sooner!_ ” he hisses, his eyes frantically dart around the room, as if his Senses would just kickstart and let him see the damned cat.

 

He’d high tail it in the opposite direction.

 

“It’s really not going to do anything to you, Lance.” says Keith with a sly smile. “And, would you look at that, I think it likes you; It’s looking right. At. _you._ ”

 

Lance lets out a weak little, whine, “Oh, nono _nonono._ What’s it doing?” he asks, foot tapping nervously against the floor. It creaks under him. “Look, how about you stand over here…” he pulls Keith in front of him and slides around and into the middle of the circle, cocooned between his teammates, “and I’ll, uh, stay right here.”

 

“Your kitty-cat’s stressing out over here,” Hunk claps his hands to his head, “Those yowls are getting kinda painful.”

 

“I am _not_ moving.” Lance can’t see it, and there’s no way he’s ever going to try and sense it out again. “No, just, _no.”_

 

Keith snorts in amusement, “It’s just a kitten!” he says, “A tiny, little bobcat _baby_. What are you? Scared?” he taunts.

 

 _“Terrified._ You get scratched _once_ , and the injections are enough to put you off them for a lifetime. _”_

 

“It’s a caracal,” Pidge says once again. Keith lifts an eyebrow in confusion.

 

“Says who?” he retorts “How’d you even know what it looks like? I thought you couldn’t see for shit.”

 

“Spirit-wise, yeah. It looks like cotton fluff and sounds like nothing. But I just used my brains.” she points a thumb at the shelf behind them and gives him a smug grin. There, a poor effort at stuffing a magnificent specimen amongst a bunch of other discarded plaques. It’s fully grown, but small. A runt. It would have been _adorable_ when it was alive. But now, a single glass eye stares out at them unseeingly, stuffing sticks out haphazardly around the seams. It’s lopsided on its stand. It’s coming apart.

 

Keith frowns, he looks angry, his eyes are all broody and his brows look thicker and surlier than ever. “What idiot thought that shooting a weak kit was a sign of strength?”

 

Now, Lance might not like cats and their kin, but he has to admit, Keith's indignation stirs something in him.

 

“And that’s a bobcat, take it from me, I've actually gone _outside_ ,” he adds with an air of snide finality and Pidge sighs. (“You fool.” she says.)

 

“There’s really nothing else to do now, is there?” Hunk says while he pulls out an iron net from his fanny pack. Keith takes it from him, claiming his Sight, and Lance watches with bated breath as he seems to cautiously side step thin air—his rod held loosely in his hand, but it seems unlikely that he’s planning on using it—and makes his way over to the trophy shelf.

 

“But why is it a ghost?” Lance asks, somewhat distracted, if only to avoid looking at Keith when he smiles softly at the empty spot in front of him. He nearly melts.

 

“If I was shot and stuffed up like some sad piñata, I’d come back to haunt you as well,” said Pidge wryly.

 

Lance nods. “True.”

 

After an affirmative nod from Hunk, Keith drapes the net over the dilapidated animal and almost immediately the air around them eases up, the chill goes away and the tightness that kept at everyone’s throats vanishes. No longer does the taint of miasma linger around the house.

 

“It’s gone,” he says sadly.

 

“I think it’s just been building up over the years,” says Hunk, he looks at one of the plaques littering the trophy stand. “It was that Bosch fellow. The game hunter.”

 

“Yeah. That was a few decades ago, yikes.”

 

“I feel kinda bad for it,” Lance admits. “Cat or not, that _sucks.”_

 

“Caracal,” says Pidge, just as Keith says “Bobcat.’ at the same time They glare at each other."

 

“We’re going back down to the kitchen right this instant. And then, I’m going to get my phone out and I will _prove_ it to you, so help me, god.” Pidge gripes.

 

“Be my guest,” says Keith.

 

 

 

 

It turns out that it was a bobcat. Lance can’t stop laughing at Pidge. This is the first time he’s ever heard her admit that she was wrong, he wishes he had a recording of the moment to save for all posterity. But then, Pidge kicks him in the knees and leaves him sprawled out on the floor, still laughing but now in a limp heap.

 

A hand’s thrust into his face and without thinking, he grabs it and lets himself get pulled up and is pulled in close. “C’mon, oh fearless leader” Keith says, “help us pack up. We need someone to carry Whiskers.”

 

Lance gulps, Keith’s forgotten about his personal space issue, yet again. “Is that what we’re calling it now?” he says in a tight voice. Keith doesn't seem to notice.

 

“She,” Keith corrects him. “And, yes.” He leans in a little closer, his voice drops into a low whisper. Lance tenses. “And, uh, I need to talk to you when we get back.”

 

“Yeah, that’s good with me.” Lance nods. “Cool, cool, cool, cool, _cool_.”

 

Keith gives him a nervous smile, and Lance stomach does a flip. “Great. Thanks by the way.”

 

“It’s no problem,” he looks at the last bundle left on the table. The bobcat seems to leer at him through the net, its single, beady eye seems to watch Lance as he walks up to it. “Guys?” he calls out. The kitchen’s empty. “Keith, buddy? Where’d you go?” They’ve all conveniently fled before he could notice. He hadn’t even seen Keith gleefully slip out a moment later.

 

He looks once more at the mangy cat. It’s teeth glint at him in the dark. “Ah, fuck me.” he wails.

 

 

 

 

**Friday, 4:45 am, A Road Somewhere**

 

The source is in containment, back at Allura’s mansion. Coran keeps the basement for quarantined sources, it normally would have been incinerated, but given the circumstances, Whisker’s set for a proper sage stuffed burial.

 

And between Keith and Hunk, there was no other way the bobcat was going to go.

 

“She won’t be back,” Allura assures them as they leave after a quick celebratory shawarma plate. “And keep the keys with me, I’ll drop them off with the daughter tomorrow.”

 

Lance is quiet on the way back to the Garrison. Quiet, because Allura had yelled at him all the way back to her house and he was feeling thoroughly chastised, and also because they were now piled into Pidge’s car and he was stuck with Keith at the back. And now his mind’s racing a mile a minute.

 

He finally told Keith that he’d never really hated him from the start. That was progress, right? Towards friendship, of course. It felt like _something_ had changed today.

 

He really wants to talk to him, but the words won’t come out, he’s almost afraid he’ll mess up and scare Keith away. _You promised you wouldn’t flirt. You promised this wouldn’t affect anything. You’re supposed to feel_ Nothing.

 

It’s not like today had revealed some secret side to Keith that Lance had never seen before. He was just as aggravating, all sharp edges and soft insides. He still made him a little furious, but—

 

_It’s gotten worse._

 

Lance groans and lets his head hit the backrest. Hard.

 

“That looked painful,” says Keith, brows wrinkled in concern, “You okay?”

 

Lance stiffens but then leans back little more slowly and hums, “Mm, yeah. Tired.”

 

“You’ll get to sleep soon. We just turned in.”

 

Pidge parks right outside their entrance. They got lucky, she’s nabbed an impossible spot. “All’s right with the universe once more,” she chirps, “now, get out of my car, the sun’s coming up.”

 

They file out, but Keith taps him on the shoulder and he slows down to draw back and away from Hunk and Pidge range. “The thing I needed to tell you about. We can talk about it tomorrow, you’re tired.”

 

“Nonsense,” Lance says. He stifles a yawn. “I’ll just tell Pidge and Hunk I need to stop by the vending machines or something and you can come with me.” he pauses for moment, “Is this something you wanna let them in on?” he checks curiously.

 

“Ah,” Keith shakes his head. maybe not right now,” he says mildly and gives him a _look_ . Lance’s neck burns. He doesn’t know what this is about, he isn’t letting himself think any further. Keith wouldn’t. He _couldn’t._ There was absolutely no way, this is moving too fast. He’d have to turn him down—

 

“Right, well then,” he says cooly.

 

They branch off from the other two, and Lance decides to grab a packet of crisps to corroborate his story before they take the long way up by the stairs. Keith stops them on the third floor.

 

“This is me,” he says. “Alright listen.” he frowns at the carpet, the toe of his boot worrying a loose thread. Lance watches it unravel for a bit. _He's cute when he's nervous,_ his brain unhelpfully supplies before he can stop himself.

 

“Well, go on,” he urges, after he decides that Keith's quietly gone over the stalling limit.  He gives Keith a dopey smile, before remembering that that was what he was _not_ supposed to do.

 

“Right. Uh.” Keith’s eyes shoot up to Lance’s and it makes him reel from the sudden intensity in them.

 

 _Is this is it,_ Lance _, is this actually happening?_

 

“I can’t assist your team any longer,” Keith says in a rush.

 

Lance blinks. Once. Twice.

 

Rapidly, and then shakes his head like a dog.

 

Time has stopped. If this was a movie, then this is where that record scratch comes in.  _Well, doy, this was not what I was expecting._ Lance stares dumbly at Keith.

 

“But you can't just us leave like that!” he hears himself say. He’s having a bit of an out of body experience.

 

“Look, it’s not you guys. I just think I won’t, uh, be beneficial in any way.”

 

Lance is absolutely flabbergasted. Confounded, befuddled—every other word in the book, really. “Did you just pull the ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ card? Did we not work the same case today?” he asks incredulously. “Keith, you cut out half our grunt work. You quite possibly saved us an entire second day on the job. We might have not been able to locate the ghost even if we were _right.”_

 

“Maybe if I had a bit more experience with this?” Keith says helplessly, “I dunno. But I can’t have someone cleaning up my messes and risking their asses for me all the time.”

 

“Wait, hold up. Is that what this is about?” Lance says and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Listen, I go by my instincts, I can’t _promise_ that I’d let anyone bite the dust like that, I would _never_ do that.  Please, there’s no reason for you to feel guilty about it. Even Pidge and Hunk are used to it.”

 

“That’s exactly why!” Keith exclaims.  “Look, I’m really happy I didn’t get skewered today, but I’m _out_ , Lance. I’ll just cause more problems than what it’s worth.”

 

“Jesus Christ, this is the worst time to listen to your conscience.” Lance growls. “What about Shiro?”

 

Keith’s eyes flash in anger, just for a moment. Lacne backs away, his hands up in the air. This conversation’s starting to nose dive, but he had no choice but to pull out the big guns for this. “You’re welcome to work that as well, but I’m going solo.”

 

Lance laughs. There’s no humour in his voice, but there's ice in his chest, “You’re joking, right? Do you know the first thing about ghost hunting?” he snarls. “I’m not trying to damsel you Keith, but you’re being _stupid._ No one goes up against them alone, you need a _team_ , otherwise it’s straight up suicide!”

 

Keith shakes in anger, “I don’t need your help,” he says in a low voice. “You just have to respect my decision.”

 

Pleading. “Please, _Keith_.”

 

“I figured that if I told _you_ then this would have gone better, I thought you’d get it. You didn't want me on this case anyway.”

 

“Only because Pidge threw you in without a training float—”

 

“Speaking of _Pidge,_ I figured that if I’d told her first she'd just hold my keys hostage again or blackmail me or something. And I've never been able to say no to Hunk,” he raves. “I just need you to respect my decision.” he stops and looks at Lance imploringly.

 

“I think you're making a mistake,” Lance whispers sadly.

 

“Then I have no other choice, do I?” Keith says.

 

The card holder by the doors beeps and shuts behind him before Lance can do anything. He gets a peek down the long hallway, Keith's room is behind on of those doors.

 

“Keith?” he calls out. “Keith!”

 

No one responds.

 

THe door slams shut and locks itself.

 

He waits by the door for a few minutes before climbing up a floor, his heart twisted into an ugly knot.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh, thanks for being patient with me.
> 
> this chapter was beta'd by the best, [Silvamoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvamoon) (in fact, she's recently combed through all of the previous chapter's and set me right (and pointed out my, biggest and dumbest loophole to end all loopholes, i owe her ten)
> 
> Title's Night Prowler by AC/DC


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